


Wherever You Are

by Slytherinsane



Series: Jason & Chase's Story [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Complete, Drama, Gay Romance, M/M, Mentions of religion, Non-Graphic Smut, Original Fiction, Romance, Sexual Content, mild homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:46:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 49,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24273772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slytherinsane/pseuds/Slytherinsane
Summary: The Reed family shelters a young man named Jason for the summer as a temporary farm hand and he falls in love with their son, who struggles to accept his sexual identity in the face of his religious background.
Series: Jason & Chase's Story [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1777387
Comments: 36
Kudos: 15





	1. Chapter 1

* * *

Every moment starts like this. With the sun slowly spreading over a frostbitten field, warmth permeating through the crisp air and the sound of the sleepy world waking up. Chase enjoyed the early mornings best because often times he felt as though these moments were the only ones which truly belonged to him. His usually busy life was calm and quiet and punctuated with the sounds of birds chirping in the distance.

There was an old, dark blue sixties GMC truck parked out near the fenced in pasture and it had been grown up with weeds. It was missing its tires and rusted from years of weathering. Chase didn't remember a time when that truck wasn't there, only that it had been there since as far back as he could remember, and for as long as that he'd been waking up early to watch the sun rise on the hood of the old thing. This morning was no different. Chase sat on top of the hood, about in the middle, with his knees bent and pulled up to his chest. His ankles were crossed and both arms were wound around his knees to hold them in place. He looked out over the field with squinted eyes, watching the light spread out over everything, quiet, almost not even there.

There had been talk of some stranger coming to stay with them for the summer, supposedly to help with what needed to be done on the farm. With the busy season arriving in less than a week, the farm would require a lot of helping hands to ensure that everything needed done got done. Chase had heard very little about this stranger, only that he was around Chase's age, maybe a couple of years older, and he was inexperienced. He had to wonder why in the world this guy was coming to help out if he knew next to nothing about working on a farm, but the vague answer to that question was usually something like "he's gonna learn how to be a man" or "because everyone needs to learn how to work on a farm". None of which gave him the answer he wanted.

Though this was the only life Chase knew, he craved something beyond all of it. He had a hunger for history and knowledge, for the fine arts, music, all things which bared no use in this life. But he was graduating soon and would be starting college not long afterwards. His father had little intention of letting Chase leave, since the farm was supposed to be handed down to him at his death, but Chase was determined to find a way out. What he sought and what this life brought him was unfulfilling. A sort of deep loneliness filled him, one which only could be stifled by fulfilling his craving for adventure.

Out of the corner of his eyes, Chase spotted a dirt cloud being spit out by the rotation of a set of tires. He looked towards it. There was a truck coming up the driveway with two passengers. _Must be the helper._ Chase got up, sliding off of the hood of the truck and jogged back toward the house.

Yolanda, Chase's mother, was already opening the door to welcome the guest, and out came the little Josee, Chase's four year old sister. Her hair was almost as white as cotton and was blinding in the sunlight. She toddled after Yolanda with her thin hair blowing around her face, a strawberry top with a pair of green shorts. She had no shoes on but that wasn't unusual for her.

"Hi, Yolanda, nice to meet you." By the time the truck stopped and Yolanda was approaching the driver's side door, the driver was already stepping out of the truck. He put his thick hand in her small, frail one and shook it in greeting, then tipped his hat at her.

"Josee, sweetie, go back inside." Yolanda placed her hand on Josee's back and nudged her toward the porch.

Chase stopped next to Yolanda and looked toward the man tipping his hat at her. "Blake, nice to meet you miss." He said, then he turned toward the other person in the truck who Chase could not see due to the glare coming off of the windshield. "Well come on then, don't be shy." He said again. The passenger door opened and someone who looked like he'd come from the city stepped out, wearing no hints of country folk clothing. Chase squinted at him, lips tightly pursed and judgmental. The shirt he was wearing had some unfamiliar and obnoxiously colorful logo plastered across the front and his jeans were dark and loose in a way that didn't look as if they'd been worn much or been through much wear and tear. His shoes were old but they weren't tennis shoes, they were converse. His hair, that was the giveaway because if there was a way to pick a redneck out of a crowd of city people, it was the way their hair looked. Chase's hair was wild and unruly, long, dirty blonde and probably looked like it could use an extra wash. But this guy's hair was neat and well kept, dark brown, that stupid flippy hair style that girls went nuts for. Chase felt neutral toward him.

"Why don't you introduce yourself? And if you don't mind miss," he turned from his company to Yolanda. "I've gotta get going. Tell Jim I said hello." Yolanda cupped one of her hands over her eyes to shield them from the light. She waved while the man got back in his truck.

Jim was Chase's father. He wasn't around much because of how much he worked, but he was a stern man. No one disrespected Jim and got away with it. He was a tireless, hard working man who always did what he had to do to provide for his family and Chase respected him, even if their opinions didn't align. That respect was precisely the reason that Chase wanted to keep his plans to leave quiet until he was sure he could follow though with them. He feared Jim might be disappointed with him and if there was anything that could rapture Chase's typically stoic presence, it was the thought that he'd displeased his father.

"Why don't we go inside, hm? Chase, I've got to take the eggs up in a few, so you're in charge of showing Jason around."

Jason. When had everyone learned his name and why hadn't Chase been included? Was he just not paying attention?

Yolanda went back inside, leaving Chase standing a few feet in front of Jason with absolutely no idea what to say. Thankfully Jason was the one to break the ice. "So you're Chase I'm guessing."

"What are you doing here if you don't know anything about working on a farm?" Instead of answering his question, Chase barked one of his own back.

"My foster parents wanted a reason to get rid of me for the summer and your parents needed extra help. Win win situation."

Chase felt sympathy at the mention of foster parents and wanting him gone during the summer. He didn't know very much about foster care but Chase had heard bad things about it. "Just because you don't know shit doesn't mean they're going to cut you any slack, you still have to pull your own weight. Come on." Chase walked up the porch steps and pulled the screen door open, not bothering to hold it for Jason. When they were both inside, Chase led him through the kitchen and down a hallway, stopping in front of one of the doors.

"Is this my room?"

"Yeah."

Jason turned the knob and pushed the door in. The room wasn't very big but it was decorated nicely. The bed was high off the ground and the comforter set was a beautiful cream color with floral patterns embroidered into it. The walls were a dark beige while the wooden furniture was bright and reddish. Jason walked into the room with his eyes roaming curiously around it and when he approached the bed, he dropped his bag and fell face first into it with his arms stretched out. Chase thought he looked kind of funny doing so.

"I love this fucking house." Jason said into the bed but loudly enough for Chase to understand him.

"You can't curse in this house."

Jason lifted his head off of the bed and turned it towards Chase. "Sorry. I love this freaking house. Better?" Chase rolled his eyes and walked away, leaving Jason staring at the doorway and laying halfway on the bed.

"Tough crowd." Jason muttered.

  
  


At dinner time, Yolanda and Josee prepared a large meal together to welcome Jason into the home. There was fresh steak, mashed potatoes, sausage gravy, corn, green beans and buttered bread rolls. Chase grabbed the plates to set out over the table while Josee handled the silverware. Yolanda brought the pot holders over to set the hot dishes on, doing so while working around her other helpers.

When it was time to sit down and eat, everyone but Jason was at the table. The silence was deafening while waiting for him and eventually Yolanda got up with a sigh to go and get him from the guest room. Jim looked impatient, arms on either side of his plate with that look on his face. That look fathers gave when they were about to burst a blood vessel trying to control themselves. Chase felt the tension emanating from his end of the table and kept his head down as if any slight movement might disturb the fragile manner in which things were being held in place.

"Sorry, I didn't hear anyone call me." Jason, only just now entering the room, strode over to his seat next to Chase, sat down and started grabbing at food the instant he could reach it. Everyone looked at him as he did so, thick silence once again falling over the room.

Even Chase was appalled by this. He didn't pay much attention to the so-called proper way to sit down and enjoy a meal but the disrespect seemed to be amplified when it was a stranger sitting at _your_ table and doing it. Quickly his eyes fell on Jason and his hateful look must have pierced through him because Jason froze and looked around at the judgmental eyes upon him. He figured out pretty quickly what the problem was, settling silently in his chair to wait for permission to eat, just like everyone else.

"In this house, we pray first, then we eat. This is your first day so I won't hound you for it, but from now on you wait until everyone else eats." Jim's surprisingly calm voice cut through the silence and Jason gave him a sheepish nod. Jim then reached for both Jason's and Yolanda's hand. Chase took Josee's hand and held his palm up in front of Jason. He placed his hand in Chase's awkwardly and that was the silent cue for everyone to bow their heads.

Jim opened the prayer, "Dear heavenly father, we come before you to thank you for blessing us with this fine meal that we're about to eat. And we want to thank you for helping us find extra hands to help with the farm this summer. You are gracious and kind and we are humbled by you. Amen."

All said 'Amen'. Chase reached for the mashed potatoes first, dropping a clump of it onto his plate. He held it out to Jason who took it and did the same. Next came the corn, passed in a circle from Chase to Jason to Jim and so forth. After that, the gravy, then the corn and everyone could reach the bread rolls themselves.

"So Jason, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?" Yolanda spoke up, covering her mouth to hide the food she was still chewing. Jason shrugged, reaching to wipe his mouth with his provided napkin.

"Not much to tell really."

"How about where you go to school?"

"Graduated about five years ago."

"Oh, really? What about college then?"

"I'm not going to college. I thought about it but I figured a diploma was good enough for most of the work I'd be interested in."

Jim spoke up next, "Chase was planning on going to college, weren't you Chase?" The way Jim worded his question felt somewhat like an ambush. Chase's skin got warm. He wasn't sure if that was a genuine question or if Jim was again trying to put in his two cents.

Chase shrugged, head down. He continued to eat as if it was the most casual thing in the world.

"I think it's good that Chase wants to go to college. There's plenty to learn." Yolanda tried to break up the thick atmosphere, but that only ended up making it thicker.

Jim, "We talked about that already. Chase is gonna have a lot to worry about once the farm is his, he won't have any time for college."

"That's still years away. There's plenty of time for other things."

Jim dropped his fork with a loud clank. "He has a lot to learn _here_ , and by the time he's ready to run the farm by himself it'll be time for him to take over anyway."

"Oh, Jim, can't we-" Yolanda startled when Jim slammed his fists down on the table. Everyone got quiet and still, including Chase.

"I've heard enough of this conversation. Now I've made up my mind, I don't want to hear anything else about it." His barking voice cut deep through the air. Everyone continued to eat as if they were trying not to wake a beast, except for Chase. His appetite faded quickly. All the talk of what his future was going to look like was plenty enough to drain him.

"Can I be excused?" Chase pushed his plate up.

"You barely touched your food sweetheart." Yolanda regarded him with concern.

"I wasn't very hungry."

"Alright, go ahead."

Chase pushed his chair back and stood. He left the kitchen and went to his room. Yolanda and Jason both had eyes on his back as he left the kitchen.


	2. Chapter 2

It was hot and humid and miserable outside. Jason was melting in his boots, sweating through his shirt and starting to itch. Jim had offered him a hat but he'd declined, thinking he would look stupid in a hat, and was now wishing he would have accepted. There were beads of sweat rolling down his neck, behind his ears, over his temples and even over his eyes. Chase was another story however, because even with his hair almost long enough to reach his shoulders and nothing to cover his head, he worked diligently and without breaking a sweat at all. Jason was absolutely blown away by his ability to work through the heat, but what wowed him the most was this, "I don't understand how you can work in this heat with long sleeves on."

Chase looked up, squinting at Jason, who was standing next to him with an arm lazily draped over his head to try and ease off some of the heat. "You get used to it."

"Maybe _you_ do but I don't think I could ever work in this heat wearing long sleeves." Jason had broken down and given in to fanning himself with his hand, which was also slick with sweat. He was perched against the wooden handle of a hoe. They were working together to plant summer crops in the smaller garden while Jim worked on the corn field.

"If it's that hot to you then take your shirt off or something. Just stop bitching." Chase pushed some dirt over a few spots that he'd planted, moved over and started doing the same there.

"Why not." Jason peeled the nearly soaked fabric off of his body and tossed it over his shoulder. He paused, then decided, "That didn't help."

Chase stood up with an exasperated puff of a breath and shoved their empty water jug at him. "Go get water." Jason stumbled back, kicked the hoe over from being dug into the soil and wrapped his hands around the jug.

"What's your deal?"

"My deal is I have to replant this whole garden, feed the chickens and wash the feeding trouphs before dinner and you whining about how hot it is instead of helping is just putting me further behind. So unless you plan on actually working anytime soon, leave me alone." Chase puffed at him and went about planting again. Jason, with both hands up in surrender and the handle of the jug hanging from his thumb, turned and left to get more water.

When Jason returned, he was wearing shorts, a tank top and a hat. By then Chase had unbutton his shirt to let it hang open and used the hair band around his wrist to tie up his hair. Jason immediately noticed Chase's bare chest. It was smooth and tan and although Chase must have worked pretty hard for most of his life, his physique was thin and lean. There was muscle there but Chase simply wasn't built very big. If Jason didn't already know it, he would never have guessed that Chase was so physically active.

He noticed, too, the messy, tangled mop of hair haphazardly pulled into a loop-bun at the back of his head. In the light, Chase's hair was warm and copper-y and highlighted with gold, compliments of the mid-day sun, but when they were inside it looked almost, just a little bit, green.

He noticed the dirt all over Chase's glasses. "Why do you wear glasses when you work? Isn't it annoying?"

"I can't see without them."

"Not even up close?"

"No. Well, sort of." Chase was standing, digging into the dirt with the hoe and readying it for planting. He was focused, that much Jason could see. And sort of. That was an answer that didn't leave much room for a response. Nothing Chase said ever left much room for a response. It had been less than forty-eight hours and Jason had already learned that Chase was focused and determined and didn't seem to share his father's idea of Chase's future.

"Is it true you're taking over the farm?" His words caught Chase's attention. Chase looked up at Jason, halting his work. This was the door opening.

"Apparently. Why?"

"You just don't seem like you want it."

"Doesn't matter what I want." Chase went back to work, putting extra strength in his arms. The choice of topic hit a nerve, but Jason didn't feel like Chase's annoyance was directed at him.

"Doesn't it?"

"Listen, I've got a lot of work to do. Are you planning on helping or not?" Again he paused, stopping to regard Jason with a look that said 'don't push it.'

"Yeah."

  
  


Sundays on the farm were days for rest and relaxation. Jason figured that out when, after waking, he noticed it was almost ten in the morning. Josee was playing in the living room while Jim and Yolanda sat together watching TV in the same room. And Jason noticed, upon leaving the guest room and stopping in front of the doorway, that a quiet, musical sound was coming from the room at the end of the hallway, who's door was just barely cracked. He tried to approach quietly but the floorboards creaked and the sound of music coming from the room stopped.

Jason wasn't being shy, nor was he trying to be sneaky. He was, however, cautious about how loud he was. This family seemed cold and unwelcoming. Besides Yolanda, everyone seemed to regard him with unnecessary caution, as if he were previously caught stealing.

He reached the door and stopped, tensing his shoulders and bringing an ear toward the half-inch slit of light coming out of the room. The music was absent. On each side of the door was the sound of persons waiting and listening. Then suddenly the door was pulled inward and Chase was in the doorway wearing an unzipped, purple jacket with a hood, plain white shirt underneath, and a pair of gray sweatpants. His hair was down, tangled and wet, evidence of a recent shower, and the fierce look in his eyes was dangerous. He looked up at Jason with his head tilted slightly down and Jason noted how he smelled of honeysuckles like those from a recent rain.

"Do you need something?" Chase's voice was cold.

Jason backed away a couple of steps and shrugged simultaneously with the shake of his head. "No, just, I thought I heard someone playing the guitar. I didn't mean to interrupt."

Chase liked to stare without saying much of anything and that was exactly what he did then. Jason felt uneasy, feeling as if he needed to offer recompense for the intrusion, but felt equally as if saying anything at all would only make things feel more awkward. So instead of speaking, Jason turned around and started to walk away, when Chase finally replied, "You want to hear it?" His voice was quiet and rough, like he needed to clear his throat. When Jason heard it he could only assume that Chase was being skittish.

He turned, pausing, and said with a smile, "Okay." Chase walked back in, settling into his mushy bed. Jason followed him inside and sat down on what looked to be a twin sized bed in the form of a couch, sitting against the wall opposite to the one Chase's bed was positioned.

Jason got the sense that Chase was shy about playing because he fidgeted with his hands more than usual and seemed to have to remind himself how to position his fingers over the frets. Judging by what little Jason had already heard, Chase was likely to be skilled at playing and should not have had trouble placing his fingers. This knowledge was endearing.

When he settled his fingers and began to play, Jason instantly soothed. He'd heard people play the guitar before, who hadn't, but this was a special occasion. Chase, who came off as cold and constantly bothered by the presence of other humans, looked like an angel. He was bright and pure and beautiful, dare Jason even think such a thing. And Chase played with his eyes closed, like this song was part of him and more than just a meticulously arranged set of notes.

Jason could not imagine another word to describe him better; beautiful. He was beautiful and Jason couldn't be bothered to feel embarrassed for thinking it.

"You're really good." Jason spoke as soon as he felt Chase was finished and Chase opened his eyes to look at him. He grabbed the guitar and set it down, propping it up on his bedside table while leaning forward, crisscross with his hands in his lap. Again he fidgeted, head down, hair in his face and his posture all curled into itself. This position was flattering to Jason because it meant that Chase was conscious of his opinion, which he could only have been if he cared enough about it to consider.

"Thanks." He was quiet. Jason liked having this advantage over the situation.

"How long have you been playing?"

"I started playing when I was four but I didn't start getting good until I was maybe around fifteen." Their eyes met when Chase finally lifted his head. It was cheesy to Jason how Chase's hair was parted down the middle and straight as a board with no layering, as if he took a pair of scissors and chopped it all off in one snip.

"How old are you now?"

"Eighteen." Chase said.

"Really? I thought you were older."

"A lot of people say that. What about you?"

"Me?" A nod, "Twenty-three." Chase raised an eyebrow at him for his age. Jason understood why, they were five years apart and both of them were equally as mature as the other. "I have the opposite problem. People usually assume I'm still in high school." And Chase smiled at that because he could see why someone would think of him as a teenager.

"To be fair, you don't look in your twenties."

"You don't think so?"

"Mmm no, you look about seventeen. Plus or minus a year or two."

Jason snorted at him for that answer. "So you're telling me I might look fifteen. _That's_ embarrassing."

"Okay maybe not quite that young."

They shared a chuckle, both of them tossing smiles in each others' direction without discretion and shamelessly staring at each other after a prolonged pause befell them.

It was Jason who added to the conversation, "So what's your story? Ever since I got here you've been like an iceberg but now you're being…nice." It might have been a trick of the light but Jason thought for a moment that a faint redness bloomed over Chase's cheeks. He was hopeful that it wasn't an illusion.

"I'm not so good with people I guess."

"Why not?"

"Because everyone wants something from me, and usually it's not friendship."

Jason was very interested in this conversation. He bent over forward with his elbows on his knees and crossed his arms to each side, a gesture like he was chilly. This cold, closed person was opening up to him and that felt something like a victory after a week of feeling like an alien. He wanted to pry as far as he could before Chase rejected him and closed himself off again.

"And what do you think _I_ want from you?"

Chase tucked one corner of his mouth in, making his lips slant, and tilted his head. "Someone to talk to."


	3. Chapter 3

* * *

There was far less to do than Jason expected there to be. His idea of working on a farm involved a lot of dirt, sweat and Ibuprofen, and that perfectly defined his first week at the Reed Farm, but once the garden was planted, all there was left to do was periodically tend to the animals until harvest, with the exception of watering the dirt and seeing to it that the animals were fed and watered appropriately.

Today, Tuesday, the entirety of the family gathered by the creek for a swim and a cookout. Jim looked strange in a pair of worn out cut-off jeans, frayed denim dangling over his knees, and Yolanda was a gentle sight to see, with her bikini top over a half-thigh length pair of cut-off shorts.

Josee, aside from the rest of the family, was the only one wearing an actual bathing suit. It was pink, peach, orange and purple with little sparkling rhinestones beaded across the hem of the suit, and on the front was a very artsy looking mermaid with a tail contrasting the gradient of the bathing suit with another gradient of green, blue and cyan. Her frilly, cotton blonde hair was pulled up into a messy little knot and in her ears, dazzling against the brilliance of the sun, were two little fake diamond studs about the size of tiny polka dots.

Chase was the easiest one of the family to look at. His hair was wet and tangled from an earlier swim and in the water he wore a big gray tank top over a pair of black and blue swim shorts. With the family gathered and a beautiful, radiant sun overhead to beautify their surroundings, Chase wore an especially bright smile…when he _did_ smile, at least.

"I wanna play splash." Josee cried. She stuck herself to Jim's leg while he was situating seasoned burgers on the grill.

"In a minute kiddo, I've gotta get the burgers on first." Jim said, reaching and awkwardly bending to pat the top of her head.

"Josee, come over here. You shouldn't be so close to the grill." Yolanda got up and held out her arms, which embraced a toddling Josee as she ran over to her mother. She was scooped up and carried back to a big thick blanket spread out over the dirt and grass. "Chase, why don't you and Josee go swim around for a few." Josee unstuck herself from Yolanda's chest as the arms holding her opened and her bare feet touched the blanket.

Chase was sitting with his knees up and with a book in his lap, an arm carefully laid across the top of the book to keep the wind from turning the pages. He looked up when mentioned and closed his book to set aside, then stood up and grabbed Josee's hand.

Jason watched them in the water. They couldn't have been more than three feet in and Chase was crouched down, surely almost sitting on the dirt he was so low, and whooshing Josee around in circles. She giggled gleefully, even squealed and what really caught Jason's attention was how warm the look on Chase's face was.

He became fiercely jealous of that look in Chase's eyes. The coldness that had been there since day one, was nowhere to be found on the Chase he was looking at now. He was completely open and vulnerable and not even slightly embarrassed or ashamed by it and _that_ was the person Jason knew lived behind a thick, impenetrable wall, and _that_ was the person he wanted to know.

It had only been a week since his arrival and Jason already felt like an outsider. He walked around carrying everyone's expectations and judgments and felt as if he was competing for their approval. Chase was the only one close to his age, therefore Jason thought of him as the only shot at not feeling like a complete stranger all summer, and yet, Chase seemed like the most difficult one of the bunch to crack open.

Jason took Chase's spot on the blanket and propped himself on the heels of his palms. When he looked around, his wandering eyes landed on the book that Chase was reading. It looked old, and not necessarily in the physical sense, but also in the way it was bound and how fine the hardback cover was. The pages were a beige color, a sign of significant aging and use. The book itself must have been at least a decade old. When he opened it to the place Chase had marked, he let his eyes fall on these words, _“Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”_

Jason wondered how often Chase read this story, because the book was old and the pages were thin and in some places were patches of faded words that could not be distinguished by someone who'd never read this story before. A love story and Jason felt like he had a long way to go in learning who Chase was if his favorite book was a romance.

Chase laughing distracted him. It drew his eyes from the page and to the glowing smile on Chase's face, along with a hearty, very pure sounding laugh. It was absolutely bizarre. In all his life, if he ever had the chance to spend it wondering what Chase's laugh might sound like, he never would have imagined it sounding like that. He had trouble picturing it at all, considering the sort of person Chase seemed to be and how completely absent his laugh had been so far. Then Jason remembered, every time it felt like it'd been forever, that they barely knew each other at all, and for about the same length of time; barely any time at all.

  
  


Jim and Yolanda took Josee back to the house, leaving Jason and Chase behind. The sun was falling past the horizon and the day's heat had subsided.

They laid head to head on the blanket, Chase with his eyes closed and Jason with curious eyes aimed at the traces of day left in the sky. With one arm folded around his head and the other limp on his stomach, Jason cycled through thoughts from earlier in the day. Foreign thoughts that he was unaccustomed to. Thoughts of Chase and his smile and his long hair, his laugh and the sweet way in which he played with Josee. All thoughts which did funny things to his stomach. If Jason was not as self aware, he would not have recognized that the feeling Chase was responsible for creating in him was an intense attraction, something, until now, he'd only ever felt for women.

Jason turned his head toward Chase in acknowledging his physical attraction and reached with the hand on his stomach to run Chase's long, probably course by now hair along his fingers. It didn't have to be silky or smooth, it was quite stunning in any way Chase chose to have it. Wet, dry, tied up, brushed, unbrushed, unruly, sweaty, any way he'd seen it so far had been just fine. And when he touched it, combed his fingers through it, he was satisfied that it was rough and tangled, satisfied that it was still not quite dry yet and satisfied that it was long enough to brush his fingers through it in the first place.

Chase noticed the sensation of tugging and turned to meet the gaze upon him. He squinted because of the sun but Jason could still see the marbling done to them by the light. "What?" His voice, Chase's voice, was tired. All day they'd been at the creek and for most of that time they'd been swimming and Jason now knew for certain that he would be sore tomorrow.

"Do you ever get tired of your hair being this long?"

"Not really. I like being able to put it up."

"But if you cut it you wouldn't have to put it up at all." Jason pushed himself up and turned in Chase's direction. He set his elbow into the blanket and wrapped the other arm over himself, mindlessly twirling a small summer flower in between his fingers. It was studded with tiny, purple little buds and protected by what looked like little hairs. The stem was thin and frail and its leaves were crunchy and crumpled at their tips.

"Maybe I like having to put it up."

Jason didn't know exactly what to say back, so he didn't, and tucked the stem of the purple flower behind Chase's ear. "That book you were reading," caught off guard by the sudden change in their dynamic, Chase turned his head even further toward Jason, "it's your favorite book." Jason didn't ask, rather he stated, because he already knew he was right. No one kept a filthy book like that if they had no attachment to it, among other things.

"It is. I've read it seven times, and I'm working on an eighth."

"Why is it your favorite?"

Chase smiled wryly, the little pinch on either side of his upturned nose defined by his faint dimples and the sweet rise of his cheeks. "Who doesn't love a complicated romance?"

"I love complicated."

This moment that they shared, each searching the others' gaze, was dangerous. For Chase, because of his obligations and morals. For Jason, because of his fragile heart and his unwavering loyalty. There was a confession being written in the stillness of the moment and it seemed as though no one else in the world, save for these two, could comprehend the language used to write it.

Chase wasn't sure what was unfolding between them, but a part of him was glad for it, whatever it was, because he felt a moment's freedom and clarity in being able to consciously choose his next actions.

That choice came in the form of a kiss, a hot kiss that Chase had not expected. Jason was leaning over him, kissing him on the mouth with one of his hands around Chase's neck, only barely restraining him, just enough to steal his kiss and otherwise gentle and uncertain.

It was instinct when Chase's eyes shut, but when he tilted his chin up and opened his mouth to encourage more of the kiss, that was a choice, his choice, his freedom.

Jason worked his way on top of Chase, gliding his fingertips up the thin material of the tank top covering a very smooth sculpt of torso and along his chest, where he spread his fingers out so that his palm rested on Chase's breastplate. And Chase was the one who opened his thighs and placed a leg on either side of Jason's hips.

The kiss was naughty and forbidden and that was what made it exciting, but Chase was yanked out of focus when Jason thrust against him and revealed that he was hard. Chase put his palm on Jason's chest and broke their lips apart. "Too far." Chase panted. His pupils were large and his eyes were lidded, so were Jason's, and both of them were hot to the touch.

Jason pulled back and looked down at the gorgeous form below him, a sight he realized he was rather fond of seeing, and fought to catch his breath. "Which part?" He chuckled breathlessly and Chase did because Jason did, finding relief in the gesture.

"You." Chase flushed but his skin was already pink from being warm.

"Me?" Jason straddled Chase's thighs when he sat up and the position made his erection easy to see through the shorts he wore to swim in. Chase briefly and timidly looked at it as he put his elbows behind him to lean up. Jason's eyes followed and he laughed again. "Oh." He rolled to his back where he'd been at Chase's side just moments ago and pinched the front of his shorts to readjust.

The strange thing about Chase was that he wasn't at all hard but wasn't at all turned off either. He was, however, aroused in other ways not yet physical.

"I wasn't trying to get in your pants, it's just hot making out with you." Jason laid his arms above his head to expand his rib cage so that he could inhale more oxygen.

 _Really really hot._ Chase thought. He'd be embarrassed to say it out loud. "I'm not opposed to the idea, I just don't think we should be stripping outside with the sun almost down." And quickly he was embarrassed. The words rattled loose before he thought to burn them first. And Jason noticed how unusually honest they were. It didn't take him much longer than a second to start smothering him in questions with his eyes. "Forget I said that."

"Oh~ So I _did_ read the situation correctly."

"What situation? What's that supposed to mean?" Chase defensively rebuddled with furrowed eyebrows.

"If you didn't want to be kissed, I doubt you would have let me kiss you."

"Just because I let you doesn't mean I _wanted_ you to."

Jason snort-laughed at the response. "Why are you defensive? And I wanted to do more than just kiss you." To which Chase had no verbal response. This made Jason grin at him. He sat up, holding his weight with one hand, and leaned into Chase, exhaling a hot breath across his lips as if he was going to kiss him. They were so close now that Chase could only see the tip of Jason's nose. "Do you wanna know what I'd do to you?"

Chase was submissively ushered backwards. He refused to lay down though, that would make it far too easy on Jason and Chase was far too defiant a person to be so easily tamed.

"First I'd tie you up. You'd look so sexy tied up in a string of Christmas lights." He inched closer and Chase was suddenly very uncomfortably horny being talked to like this, like a possession, which, in any other circumstance, would be revolting. When it was Jason, it was sexy. Jason knew how to make it sound sexy and it was really, really sexy.

"And kiss you everywhere." Jason lowered his lips to the crook of Chase's neck, placing a sweet, hot kiss in it. Chase was incredibly sensitive; all it took was that one kiss for his spine to shudder. Jason kissed the other crook, then used two fingers to push his head up by the underside of his chin and kissed his throat. This was such an incredible turn on to Chase that all he could do to keep from snapping at him for the tease was clench both fists and try to stifle the ache in his gut.

Jason slid down one hand, pushing it into Chase's swim trunks. If he wasn't hard a minute ago, he certainly was now. The moment Jason touched him, Chase huffed. The smallest of sounds came up his throat, a whimpering, half-squeak of a desperate sound and all of his body began to gently rock in motion with Jason's hand.

"You're so horny baby~" Jason cooed along his throat, his voice a mess of lust and want. It was all that much more of a turn on to Chase, who was already halfway. "I didn't even get to the good part."

Chase rolled his head, his lips finding that filthy talking mouth before it could say anything even more embarrassing and even more so for the reason that he was getting close really quickly and didn't want to make an ass of himself by being obnoxiously verbal during his climax.

He reached down and cupped Jason's hand through his trunks, creating more friction by shifting against that hand, and then climaxed almost painfully hard into it. And he discovered that making out during an orgasm only made him louder.

Chase collapsed onto his back and Jason retrieved his hand, cleaning it off in the nearby water. He was embarrassed but far too exhausted now to show it. It was the most incredible feeling he could ever remember feeling. Jason as the reason for it was simply prohibited.


	4. Chapter 4

There were not many things that Chase regretted. He was focused and in control and what choices he made were usually the ones which had the greatest overall chance of success. But this time, this time Chase had no plausible or reasonable explanation for why he chose, _willingly_ , to act against his beliefs. He could not explain why, in the heat of the moment, his fortunately very cynical and untrusting self would give in to something so far out of character, so _embarrassing_ , if nothing else.

Yes, embarrassing. There was no word better to describe the memory of the previous night than to call it embarrassing. He and Jason were virtually strangers and Chase had a hard time opening up to long-time _friends_ let alone being intimate and vulnerable with them. If Chase was the type to drink, he'd be gratefully plastered about now, trying to forget what his mind was so hell bent on remembering. He wanted to crawl into a dark place and hide away there until the end of the summer, preserve some of his dignity and call it a bad dream.

It wasn't unusual for Chase to sleep very little, but in this case, he was awake before the first break of dawn to clear his mind. Applebee, a white horse with black spots and his favorite horse, stood in the dark at the edge of an ever expanding pasture which saw little life at this time of the early morning. There was no wind and no sound, as strange a thing as it was for the impending hot season. Chase came here from time to time to clear his head and regarded this place as sacred. This is where he read and dreamed and where the wind stole secrets off his lips that only the two of them knew. It was where the world could really be seen as it was.

"If you could talk to me, I wonder what you'd say." Chase spoke to Applebee while sitting on her back with the reigns in his hands. "I bet you'd laugh at me if you could." If there was anyone or anything that knew him best, it was Applebee. For as long as Chase could ride a horse, he'd been coming here to talk to her. Chase found comfort in her inability to understand him and that made him feel free to say whatever he needed to say.

Applebee raised her head and exhaled. One of her ears twitched, but she was still and calm. She was an old girl, about at the end of her life and age made her docile. Made her wise. Maybe that was the reason why Chase felt he could tell her everything, because even if she never understood, she could never judge him either, and not dealing with the prospect of losing someone or something dear to him for his unabashed honesty was comforting.

"I don't know what got into me. It just sort of happened. And now I can't stop thinking about it." He meant that in more than one way. Chase couldn't stop thinking about how embarrassing it was and how much unlike him it was, but underneath his shame and guilt was fear and dread, because their shared intimacy was hot and raw and fragile, in a way, and what if Jason felt differently about him now? Why did _that_ scare him more than losing control? Analyzing himself didn't bring any deeply woven feelings to the light, there was attraction yes, but that was all. And yet, even as strangers, Chase feared being looked at as weak, as disgusting, as perverse. He wanted to erase it all and be done with the frustration, go back to when they were just beginning to get to know each other and leave it at that. Maybe he could.

Chase was back on the farm just as daylight started crawling over the fields. The fog was thin and mysterious and the distant chirps from the birds slowly started to wake the rest of the creatures living nearby.

Chase put Applebee back in her stable, lingering to feed, pet and brush her and by the time he finished, a warm hue had blended with the light and made the land look brighter. Jim was already up and walking off the porch, probably about to leave for work at the mill. He worked there with Blake when he wasn't working on the farm.

Blake was a good man. There was a bad storm a couple of years passed that wiped out most of the cornfield, sending the family into a financial crisis and during that time, even while Blake too was struggling financially, he gave Jim extra hours at the mill and bonuses to get them through it all. It had been Blake, more than once, who was there to make sure that they were taken care of.

"Well good morning. Where have you been?" Yolanda was at the stove in the middle of fixing breakfast when Chase walked into the house.

"I took Applebee out for a ride."

"Must have still been dark out. You know that's dangerous don't you?" She flipped a strip of custom cut bacon, splashing grease out of the skillet. Chase didn't use words to reply. He stood still and answered her with his silence, like a scolded child. "Why don't you go get Jason up. I'll be done with breakfast shortly."

The moment that name left her mouth, Chase felt all of his dread and worry rise up in the pit of his stomach, and he must have showed it because Yolanda asked, "Something wrong?"

"No. Sorry, I'll go wake him." Chase fended off her stark perceptions before they could grow and left the kitchen. When he reached the guest room door he stopped, braced himself with a breath and knocked. There was no answer, so he twisted the knob and entered the room with caution. As he suspected, Jason was still asleep.

He stopped at the side of the bed and gazed down at Jason's sleeping form. He was much less intimating when he was asleep. "Hey," Chase squatted next to his face and reached over his back to nudge him. "Jason."

"Mm." Jason rolled his face into the pillow and curled his arms underneath himself, making his shoulder blades pop out under his shirt. Chase pulled his arm back.

"It's morning. My mom's making breakfast so get up."

"I ever mention that I'm not a morning person?" Jason rolled his face back to look at Chase and his eyes were lidded and squinty and his voice was sinfully sexy being that deep and sleep ridden. He was grinning tiredly at Chase, who had absolutely no idea what to say, and then unsheathed his arm from under his belly to reach out and tuck the fallen hair from his loop-bun behind his ear.

"Get up." Chase stood, itching where Jason touched him and felt his skin crawling all over.

"Don't be nice or anything, wouldn't want that." Jason pushed himself upright, sliding his legs out from under the blanket. Chase rolled his eyes and left the room to avoid being roped into a conversation he was uninterested in having.

It seemed, though, that Jason was determined to have that conversation because even during breakfast, with Yolanda and Josee present, Jason reached under the table to grope his thigh. The abruptness of it startled him and Chase stood to escape it, knocking the table with his knuckles and nearly sending his chair to the floor. Jason gave him a hell of a funny look as he rushed out of the kitchen to lock himself in his room.

It wasn't until noon that Jason decided to check on him. He stopped and leaned against the wall outside the room, knocked on the door and then crossed his arms. "Chase, you still in there?"

"What do you want?"

"I just wanna talk." Silence. Then moments later, the door was unlocked. Jason assumed by the absence of the door being opened after being unlocked that it was safe to enter, so he did. Chase was sitting on his bed with a notebook open in front of him, writing, or evidence of writing anyway. The pen was laying on the page and Chase was sitting with his back bent over and his arms crossed, and he wasn't looking at Jason as he entered the room.

"Talk." Chase said. Jason, standing at the end of the bed, tucked his hands into his pockets.

"Maybe you wanna tell me why you're being cold to me again?" Chase gave him a very steely gaze. Jason wasn't intimidated.

"No particular reason."

"And yesterday?"

"Shouldn't have happened."

The room seemed to shatter. Jason felt lied to. "And you're making _me_ the bad guy, right? Because I didn't ask for your permission?" Jason tossed his head back and laughed briefly at the ceiling. "Well, whatever." He turned and walked out of the room but Chase got up in a hurry and stopped in his doorway.

"Jason-" His breath caught. Jason turned around with cold eyes that tied Chase into knots. "You're wrong. It's not like that. My parents- they're religious. If they knew it happened-" There was fear in his eyes and in his voice. Jason softened at the sight and sound of it because he realized that Chase wasn't trying to be an asshole, he was trying to protect himself, and Jason understood better than anyone else how desperate one could make themselves when they felt unsafe around the people they should have felt safest with.

"It's okay. I get it." Jason exhaled. "But what about you?"

"What _about_ me?"

"Were you into it?"

Chase flustered. He averted his eyes. "Well, I wasn't _not_ into it. But it doesn't matter," he looked back. "it can't happen again."

Jason clicked his tongue and sardonically replied, "Maaan, you'd be such an easy lay too."

 _"Jason."_ In his tone was a warning. Jason found it amusing and laughed.

"I'm joking. But if we can't kiss and stuff, what _can_ we do?"

Chase simply smiled.

"Jeez, I'm gonna make an ass of myself. You better not laugh." Jason stood next to Applebee with dreadful eyes on Chase, who was smiling smugly at him from a few feet away.

"Oh I'm definitely going to laugh. Just try it, maybe you won't fall and break your ass."

"Maybe." Jason mocked. He sighed and looked at the saddle, reached for the peg on it and wrapped his hand around it. Then he lifted his foot and put the toe of one of Jim's old pair of boots into the stirrup, pushing himself from the ground. He raised up the other leg and tried to swing it around but his grip faltered and when the stirrup swung, he was unable to find his balance before falling sideways to his hip, foot still caught in the stirrup.

Chase erupted in laughter behind him and Jason, now covered in dirt, slowly turned a death gaze on Chase. "You know, your laugh is less appealing when you use it to make fun of me."

"You're kidding. I haven't laughed that hard in years." Chase snickered on his way over. He extended an arm and helped Jason stand after untangling his foot.

"Ha ha." Jason was just kidding, but he looked and sounded very agitated, which just seemed to amaze Chase more.

"Look." Chase walked up to Applebee and grabbed her saddle. He stuck his boot into the stirrup and fluidly hoisted himself up, leg across the saddle and to the other side and butt planted in the saddle like it was nothing. To him, it probably wasn't but Jason fared differently his first time.

"Yeah that's not happening."

"It might. I'll go get Daisy, hold on." Chase swung off and down from Applebee just as fluidly as he'd gotten onto her, then Chase entered the stable. When he walked out he was holding the reigns of a different horse, an all black horse with a single patch of brown over its right eye. She was shorter, stockier and had a much thicker mane than Applebee did. Her eyes were also much wider and more full of life as she was several years younger than Chase's horse.

"She's pretty." Jason set his hand on her head and looked into her eyes. She was calm but she wasn't trusting, Jason could tell. The look in her eyes wasn't fearless, but observing, and Daisy probably only trusted him because of Chase, for which he was grateful.

"She's moody. Be gentle."

"Right." Jason cooed at her, whispered to her and rounded her to get to her saddle. He grabbed it and tried to ease his foot into the stirrup and so far she was letting him. He paused first so that she didn't feel like she was being attacked, and then pushed off the ground, using it as leverage to swing his leg to her other side. He landed in her saddle with almost the same fluidity as Chase.

"Good job. Daisy must like you. Usually she bucks people off before they get on her, or tries to." Chase, back on his horse, guided Applebee up to Daisy's side.

"I must be special then. So, what now?"

"Wanna take her for a ride?" Chase was smiling at him and Jason saw how genuine it was. It made his stomach twist and flutter, and then Chase was suddenly ten feet ahead of him after clicking his tongue and heeling Applebee. Jason flicked the reigns and then Daisy was bolting in the same direction.


	5. Chapter 5

* * *

On Jason's third Sunday at the Reed Farm, Chase took him to the empty pasture where he sometimes went to hide away from the world. The two of them laid side by side underneath a setting sun, marveling at the beautiful shades of warmth still stretching across the sky. The day's heat had subsided and all that remained was a lukewarm air.

Chase got cold easily so he was wearing a sweater. Jason was not all too prone to the heat, so he was still wearing only a T-shirt and jeans. "Have you always lived on a farm?" Jason asked. His arms were stretched out above his head and both hands busied themselves clenching the blades of grass between his fingers.

"Born and raised."

"So why don't you talk like your parents?"

Chase rolled his head to the side and looked at Jason. "With an accent you mean?"

"Yeah. They talk really…crooked."

Chase snorted. "Y'mean like this?" He perfectly mimicked the accent of his parents. Jason burst with laughter instantly.

"Yes, that. Why don't you talk like that?"

"I just never have. I don't know why."

"It makes you sound smarter." Jason got up onto one elbow and looked down at Chase, who then faced him and looked up at him quietly.

Chase smiled. He smiled just barely and the look on his face was soft, innocent. Jason felt magnetically drawn to it, felt his stomach burn every time he saw Chase smile. He'd thought many times about grabbing his face and kissing him whether he liked it or not, but he was getting to know the warm person inside of Chase and if kissing him could ever possibly ruin that, he'd accept a platonic relationship and an unreciprocated affection for him without a second thought.

And how many times had he wondered if any of those smiles could possibly have meant more? Like flipping a switch, Chase went from being cold and distant to being warm and open with him, as if they'd known each other for a long time. And Chase felt that way too, as if this impossibly short amount of time was much longer than it seemed.

Jason got caught up staring at his lips. He lowered himself slowly so that he was at eye level with Chase and set his hand in his hair with his elbow in the grass.

"You're staring." Still smiling, maybe even smiling bigger than a moment ago, Chase let his forehead tilt down and kept his eyes locked with Jason's. This gesture was bashful and sweet. It drove Jason mad. Everything about Chase drove him mad.

"God you're beautiful." Jason spoke from deep within his chest, all of his want conveyed through his tone. Chase snorted, his grin widening even more.

"I think maybe you need these more than I do." Chase pulled his glasses from his face, lifting some of his hair in the process, and situated them on the bridge of Jason's nose. Everything became a distorted, barreled blur that Jason tried to blink to get rid of.

"You weren't kidding when you said you couldn't see, shit." He had to pull the glasses off of his face after his eyes started watering. Then he looked at Chase who was grinning at him, who'd never _stopped_ grinning at him, and paused. This was the first time he was seeing Chase without his glasses and Chase…Jason thought he was marvelous.

"I can see you, but after that things start to look blurry." He opened his hand when Jason handed him his glasses back and put them back on.

Jason wanted to lean forward and kiss him until he couldn't breathe. They'd already shared a kiss, shared more than a kiss, and all that Jason could think of since then was imprinting himself onto every part of Chase that he could reach. Lips, cheeks, eyes, neck, shoulders, hands, everything. All of him. This feeling so dramatically outweighed lust and instead revealed itself as affection and want and need. Sex had nothing to do with it.

"You're still staring." And Chase was still smiling at him. Jason, before thinking, put his hand on Chase's neck. He stopped there, but his eyes were not discreet in their endeavor to strip him spiritually.

Jason closed his eyes and took in a breath through his nose. "I can still taste your lips." He opened his eyes and retracted his hand. This was unwelcome and he should have thought first, but damn if he wasn't just a little bit desperate.

"Mint." Chase said. His voice gave no hint of disdain.

"No, barbecue."

"Mint. That's what you tasted like." Chase wasn't even shy, wasn't even embarrassed, to speak so boldly. Jason wasn't expecting the honesty.

"Are you sure? Its been a while, maybe you forgot." Jason started to bite his lip. "Maybe you need a reminder."

"Was that supposed to be subtle?"

"Not really."

"Because it wasn't."

Jason took Chase's hand. He brought it to his lips and brushed them over it without taking his eyes off of Chase. And Chase, who'd been grinning this whole time, stopped. His chest expanded and ached from the touch, which Jason took note of. "Do you want me to kiss you?" Chase sunk his teeth into his bottom lip to quiet himself just as he was about to speak. Jason knew why. He knew why and that's why he leaned forward, grabbed both sides of his neck and crushed his lips to Chase's. Chase opened his mouth and kissed back hard, but only for a few seconds before pulling back.

"Why are you doing this to me?" Chase asked him quietly. His eyes were closed and a sort of desperateness in his voice pulled on Jason's heart strings. That was the voice of someone trapped in a web of lies.

"Doing what? Kissing you?"

"Why is it so hard to say no to you?" There was frustration in his small voice and just as he opened his eyes, he was, in that very same moment, rising from the grass. He put his hand in the middle of Jason's chest and pushed him to his back in the grass, then crawled onto his waist and sat there. Jason could almost speak, but then his lips were busy being bruised by Chase's and he had no qualms about it.

Jason had him pinned in a matter of moments, pinned to his back without breaking their kiss and he explored the bare skin underneath his sweater and Chase allowed him to. One layer of clothing was removed at a time, shirts first, then pants and then there was nothing left to remove.

Their heat carried through the cold, warming them both, and they were far enough away from the house to be verbal and greedy and filthy. Jason grabbed him from the underside of his thigh and pulled it up over his hip, pushing into him needily. He held his top half up with his other hand on Chase's middle and Chase pulled at any part of Jason he could reach.

"Almost." Jason cooed. He gazed with lidded eyes at Chase, at the way his eyes were closed and his mouth was open and his messy hair was pooled out under him in the grass. The sky was a dark purple with strips of red burbling out where the light of the sun was still visible, but it was enough light to see his beautiful face. It was enough light for Jason to see him and to admire him.

  
  


The stars were much brighter out in the field than they were under the house, and there seemed to be more of them too.

Jason was tangled on top of Chase, their arms and legs overlapping. The grass was prickly and itchy and yet neither one of them cared. At his neck, Jason left kisses, trailing them over his chin. Their lips locked again and again and then Jason lifted his head to ask, "Are we going too fast?"

Chase turned his chin at him, grazing his lips across Jason's cheek. "What do you mean?"

"This. Us."

"That would imply that we're involved."

"Aren't we?"

"Not like that. Don't make me think. I just want to enjoy this before we have to go back."

"Then what, we'll pretend this didn't happen? I don't want that." He was desperate about Chase, worried that this moment would slip away if he didn't try to claim it. Chase was important to him and he didn't want to go back to being on his cold side.

"Jason," Chase started to sit up. Jason moved off of him and leaned back on his hands so that he could. "If you're suggesting what I think you are, it won't work."

"Why, because of your parents?"

"Because I don't know you. Because my dad would kill you and because you're leaving in two months. It _won't_ work." Chase grabbed his clothes on his way to his feet and started dressing. Jason fell to his back. As angry as he was for being shot down, Chase was still right, at least about two of those things. And besides, Chase preferred to shut him out, to shut everyone out, so unless he had nothing to lose, Jason had nothing to gain and he didn't feel right trying to weasel his way into a relationship like that.

"Yeah. You're right." Jason gave up, at least temporarily. And anyway, it was dark and cold and he was tired and naked and he really wanted to eat and then go to bed.

The two of them got fully dressed and onto their horses before making their way back to the house.


	6. Chapter 6

The way Jason felt about Chase was silly. At least _he_ thought so. Maybe if it had been longer and maybe if they’d gotten to know each other better, the strength of his feelings would seem more reasonable. But as it stood, Jason could not stand seeing Chase in the arms of anyone else, so when Chase accepted a strange woman’s request to dance, to _slow_ dance, a hot and raw jealousy cooked up in the pit of his stomach. The source of these feelings originated in not knowing whether or not Chase felt anything for him at all, and then knowing that either way, there was nothing he could do about it without making it apparent that something was going on between the two of them. Chase would have him on his knees for the rest of the summer if he dared to pull a stunt like that, and not the good kind of having him on his knees.

The girl was beautiful. She had long, wavy blonde hair with streaks of pink in it and the button up she had on was tucked into her denim jeans, billowed out around her waist where she’d been moving around. Her footing was impressive, but Chase’s was awkward and reluctant. Jason found some ounce of comfort in watching his clunky feet. It was a guilty hope of his that she would find him less attractive for his lack of smoothness.

Chase was holding onto her waist and smiling at her, smiling too much. His thick wads of hair kept falling into his eyes and he kept on reaching up to tuck them behind his ears, a gesture Jason found sweet. And apparently so did the girl because their shared laughter could be heard all the way to where Jason was seated, watching them from afar at the back of The Rising Sun’s country club event. Jason didn’t think that Chase would have been interested in coming had it not been for Yolanda and Jim pressuring him into attending. Jason wished now that Chase was less of a push-over.

“Are you thirsty? I can go get us something to drink real quick.” The girl had an accent, a very typical, very strong accent but her voice was small.

“Uh, yeah. Okay.” Chase said back, then watched her as she walked away, blonde curls bouncing with her every step. Jason hated the way his eyes lingered on her, thinking, _‘Look at me, not her’_. The funny thing is that Chase did, and he looked over right on cue, as if he’d somehow read Jason’s thoughts. Jason gave him an awkward smile, now feeling as though Chase knew everything. Chase smiled too, and it came as a relief to him to see that it was just as awkward a smile as his own.

They did not part their eyes, did not look away, for much longer than necessary. Chase was the first to look away, jerking his head toward the girl when she returned with a red cup in each hand. She handed him one and he took it, smiling at her before drowning his expression in the cup. Too fast. Jason laughed when Chase tilted the cup back too far and too quickly and got it all over his shirt. The girl reached out and wiped at it and Jason suddenly felt something hot rippling underneath his skin. He got up and, without thinking, walked over to them. “Can I borrow him?” He asked. Both of them turned their heads, Chase first, and she gave a disappointed and quiet okay.

“God, thank you. She wasn’t taking the hint.” Jason was shocked to hear relief in Chase’s voice, to see his shoulders fall and everything about him visibly relax. And then, really, it was kind of funny. Jason had been watching them for over an hour, thinking Chase had an interest in her when really, it was Chase’s fault for not being straightforward. Knowing so made Jason want to laugh.

Chase followed Jason to his table and sat down with him. He was still holding the cup given to him and leaned forward to cup his hands around it when he sat. Jason scooted his chair in and laced his fists together over the table, eyes and a grin on Chase. “She was awful pretty, I’m surprised.”

He rolled his eyes and smiled, “She wasn’t that pretty.”

“You didn’t think so? Strange because most guys would jump at the chance to dance with a hot chick like that.”

Chase, who now had his cup raised to his lips, choked on his beverage and spit it back into the cup. He wiped his mouth with a cringe on his face. “Don’t ever use that phrase. It makes you sound like a prick.”

“What phrase, hot chick?”

“Yes, _that_ phrase.” Chase stared coldly. Jason was simply amused.

“Sexy babe?”

Chase groaned, “That’s worse.”

“What phrase would you use then?”

“Uh,” Chase pinched his eyebrows and gave a very judgmental face. “Beautiful woman? Something less objectifying. She’s not a _thing_.” Great, as if women needed more of a reason to find him attractive. Jason’s grin withered and he looked away so that his distaste would not be so obvious. Chase was perceptive, however, so he asked, “You okay?”

“Peachy.” No, not quite, Jason thought and while he deliberated on those feelings, he reached for the cup that Chase had just been drinking from and took advantage of how much of his face it covered when he raised it back to drink from it.

“Um, I spit in that.”

Jason stopped mid-swallow and half-regurgitated the long gulp in his mouth back into the cup. He set it down with a scowl and shoved it toward Chase, who was half-grinning, half-cringing at him.

“So you’re _not_ okay.” Chase stated very plainly.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re fine.” There was nothing about Chase’s tone to suggest he believed Jason in the slightest, and Jason had asked for this conversation by not suppressing his feelings and choosing to enjoy the night instead of dwelling on less than positive things.

Jason’s resolve to maintain a calm and fun outer exterior faltered almost instantly. From looking absently into the crowd, he looked at Chase and leaned over the table as much as he could without looking uncomfortable and said with a hushed voice, “Yes. I’m fine.”

Chase decided not to argue with him, so he shrugged, sighed and looked back into the crowd.

  
  


  
  


The floorboards could not quite keep a secret. Even creeping was not left unheard in the dead of night when Chase, dressed in a shirt big enough to swallow a bear and a pair of baggy sweatpants, tiptoed down the hallway and through the living room to the kitchen, where he reached the front door. Chase unlocked it and pulled it in, taking the metal wire handle on the screen door and pushing it out. He stepped carefully down onto the wooden boards of the porch, taking caution in closing the door first, then the screen and once he was outside and free, he freed a book from underneath his arm.

Chase sat down on the porch swing, curling both legs up sideways on it and resting the book in on his legs. He had an old book light that he clamped to the book’s hardback cover then, after pressing the on-button, positioned the bending stem so that the light was focused down on the page, then he started reading once he found his place.

As noted, the slight screeches from the wood, as Chase crept outside, were loud enough to wake someone, that someone being Jason, who followed Chase out only a few minutes later. He too cautioned himself in opening and closing the doors, also taking courtesy not to turn on the porch light before leaving the house. He shuffled closer to Chase until he could sit down at the other end of the swing.

“What are you doing out here?” Chase bent the stem of the book light so that it cast their shadows across the wood and revealed their faces. Jason was looking at him with heavy eyes.

“Couldn’t sleep. I’m guessing you couldn’t either.”

“Sometimes I like to stay up and read. You should go to bed.”

“I’d rather be with you.” His voice was not at all sappy or intentionally emotional, but tired and deep and all the more genuine. That was the only reason that Chase blushed when Jason spoke. He blushed for several reasons, even. For the reason that it was late and dark and quiet and how they were alone together, for one. How Jason wasn’t trying to sound sexy and still did anyway, for another. And how, in a moment like this, they could pretend.

They could pretend that Chase’s parents were not asleep just walls away from them. They could pretend that this was not a secret, or that it would not _become_ one later.

Chase bit down and chewed on his lip, looking back at Jason as he was looking at Chase. He stared without staring, in thought, and realized he wanted more than to share gazes like this, more than wondering; what if Jason had not come to the farm? What if Jason had not kissed him at the creek or tried to know him at all. Then he realized how lucky he was to feel like this at all.

“With me.” Chase repeated. He couldn’t think of what to say but he knew that if he didn’t say anything they would not speak and he didn’t want to be the one to break the silence. Jason was good at pulling a conversation out of a single word. Chase had faith in that.

“With you. You’re warm.”

Chase wasn’t sure what that meant. They weren’t touching, so he assumed that Jason likely wasn’t referring to his external temperature. “I’m warm?”

Jason stretched toward him, reaching for the book and shutting it. He grabbed it from Chase and Chase didn’t protest it, then set it down on the wood before pulling his head into Chase’s lap. Chase’s hands hovered over him for a few seconds before they gently settled in his hair. And he bit down on his lip again, heart thrumming in his chest and probably so loudly that Jason could hear him. “You’re warm.” Jason repeated.

“You have to be the weirdest person I’ve ever met.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because I’m cold. I’ve always been cold and you’re the only person who seems to disagree.”

“Then maybe you’re not the one who has trouble seeing.” Jason reached up with his hands and touched Chase, spreading his fingers up the back of his neck and into his hair. The touch sent chills up and down his spine and aroused him.

“What else do you see?”

“I see,” he ran his thumb over Chase’s nose. “talent and ambition and,” his thumb ran down across his lips. “beauty.” Chase laughed sardonically.

“It doesn’t feel like I’ve only known you for a month.”

“I guess it’s not just me then.” Jason spread his fingers back through Chase’s hair and Chase shuddered, closing his eyes and raising his shoulders to accommodate the tilt of his head. His lips parted too and Chase pushed his fingers under the neck of Jason’s shirt, pushed them all the way under and over his bare chest, having to lean forward to do so. He noticed how little hair there was on him, which he’d been in too much of a rush to climax the first time he’d seen Jason’s bare chest to notice. “It feels like I’ve never not known you. Like I knew you in every life I’ve ever lived.”

“Jeez, shut up.”

Jason laughed. He pulled his hands from Chase’s hair and sat up to turn around and face him, then he pinched Chase on the chin and pulled him closer so that he could kiss him. In the dark, there was much less seeing and a lot more hearing and feeling and Chase felt hot, very hot. He tasted mint and lemon in Jason’s mouth, traces of what they had for dinner, and put his hands on Jason’s legs because if he didn’t put them there, he’d put them somewhere else and probably somewhere embarrassing.

Jason cupped his neck in both hands and only kissed him long enough to make him want more. He drew his kisses up Chase’s cheek and kissed his ear, below his ear, behind his ear, _in_ his ear. Chase arched his back and sucked in a noisy breath when he felt more than a kiss inside his ear, “As quiet as you are, I bet you sound magnificent when you make noise.”

“Blankets.” Chase spoke before he had the chance to clear his throat. He pulled away from Jason abruptly to savor what little self-control he had left. “And pillows. Go get them.”

“Your wish is my command.” Jason kissed him before getting up and heading back into the house.

They carried them out to the old truck resting and rotting in the yard, laying one down in the back and another for them to crawl under, then they both climbed inside, carving sins into each other’s lips on their way. When he had Chase on his back, Jason wrapped his hand around his throat and pushed down in pushing himself upright. Chase could still breathe, but just barely, and not because of the pressure to his throat.

Naked and bruised in each other’s lust, they didn’t rest until sunrise, when they had to be in a hurry to hide the evidence.


	7. Chapter 7

It rained like it hadn’t rained in a year. The skies were dim but the world was green and vibrant against the dark clouds. Unfortunately for both Jason and Chase, feeding the animals could not wait another day. Their troughs were nearing empty and would be barren before the day’s end.

Jim was at work and Yolanda was inside to keep Josee from leaving the house trying to follow her, so Jason and Chase were responsible for ushering the animals inside the barn and providing them with food.

“This is seriously disgusting.” Jason wore his shirt over his nose, eyes squinting and watering and his eyebrows pinched together. He raked what looked like mud and smelled like shit to the edge of the barn so that it could be bucketed and tossed in the trees afterward. Chase, who was laughing at him and completely unphased by the smell, raked from the back so Jason didn’t have as much work to do cleaning the excrement from the barn.

“Just be glad your's goes down the toilet.” 

“Don’t have to tell me twice.” Jason mumbled from under the cloth. He gagged just when thinking that, by breathing through his mouth and not his nose, that he was inhaling the waste from the animals.

The roof was not entirely solid, so the rain found its way through little cracks in the paneling to the damp hay below. Chase’s hair was damp from the droplets of rain and the humidity and his clothes were cold and heavy, although not wet. And outside the barn they could hear a swishing, a pattering, the humble sound of the rain hitting the grass and the hard ground.

“Let’s go do something after this.” Normally Jason was the one to initiate these sorts of conversations, but Chase was the one who did this time. He paused in raking to look at Jason, leaning on his rake. Jason stopped to look at him too.

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. I was kind of hoping you would come up with something.”

“Me? I know nothing about this city.”

“Yeah but, aren’t you usually the one with all the ideas?”

“I admit you have a point. Uhh,” His hands were gloved but they weren’t dirty. He raised a hand and pushed his bangs up. “Is there anything fun to do in this town?”

“Depends on your idea of fun.”

“I’m gonna take that as a no. Well, what do you _usually_ do when you wanna have fun?”

“I read, or write.”

“Yikes. You’re spectacularly boring.”

Chase scoffed, pretending to be offended. “Hey, just because we have different ideas of fun doesn’t make me boring.”

“Oh really? I’m pretty sure most people would tell you the same thing.”

“I dunno, I might surprise you.” When Jason looked up to give him the side-eye, Chase threw something at him and it hit him on the chest. Jason froze, dropped his head and looked right at a fist sized splatter of cow excrement soaking into his flannel shirt. He looked back up to see Chase grinning at him smugly. “Are you surprised?”

“Ohh _bad_ idea.” The look of impending revenge on his face contorted into a mean looking grin. He reached down at his feet and grabbed a handful of manure.

“No, no, don’t you dare.” Chase put a hand up, palm facing him as he started to walk toward Chase. A playful panic arose and he started to back away, laughing nervously as Jason neared him.

“You can throw cow shit at me but I can’t throw any cow shit back? That’s not very fair, now is it?”

“But I actually _like_ my clothes, those aren’t even yours. Jason, no. Jason-!” Chase squeaked in panic and turned around to bolt out of the barn but Jason grabbed for him, taking a fist full of his matching flannel shirt and propelling him backwards. Chase twisted and grabbed the wrist clutching onto his shirt but only just in time to have the handful of manure smeared all over the side of his head. It squished into his hair and fell off in clumps, and all the while, Jason was laughing ruefully.

Chase gasped, shoulders rising like an ice cube had just been dropped down the back of his shirt. “You’re such a prick.” Chase was not angry but the adrenaline that overtook him had him grabbing the lump off of his hair and smearing it on Jason’s cheek, what of it he could grab with the glove on.

Jason spat, swinging his arm up to push away Chase’s and he stumbled backward, wiping at his face with the back of his arm without thinking. His sleeves were rolled up, so it dirtied his bare arm, which just brought Chase to more breathless laughter. “Alright. Alright, that’s how you wanna play it?” Jason bent down and this time filled both of his fists with manure. By the time he raised back up, Chase had run out of the barn. “ _Oh_ no you don’t.” He went after him.

Just as he rounded the barn, he was met with ice cold water, a bucket full of it, thrown in his face. Jason slipped on the mud and fell on his butt and when Chase tried to flee again, Jason squirmed in the mud and grabbed him by the legs, bringing him to his hands and knees in the mud. “Okay, okay I get it!” Chase yelled, laughing, trying by kicking and worming around to get out of Jason’s grip, but he couldn’t.

Jason grabbed him from two different spots and twisted him until he could push Chase down into the mud onto his back. Then he pinned him down and straddled him with a look of triumph on his face. Chase, breathless, went limp in defeat.

“Didn’t think you’d actually get me back.” Chase said with breathless pauses. He breathed a laugh and closed his eyes.

“I’m still not done with you.”

“You better not. You already ruined my clothes.” He paused. Jason looked at the matted lump in his hair and then Chase followed up with, “And my hair. I think that’s good enough.” Then Jason leaned down and kissed him.

For a moment Chase drowned himself in that kiss, but he put his hands on Jason’s chest a moment later and pushed him back to break them apart, even more breathless now. “Not right here.” He said. It took just a second for Jason to get up and offer Chase a hand, but only so that he could steal him away to the inside of the barn, away from prying eyes, and kiss him even harder once they were out of sight.

But what they didn’t know, was that a pair of eyes had already been watching them from a distance. From the porch, Yolanda stood with a jacket on. She’d heard the noise outside and wandered out onto the porch to see if Jason and Chase were alright, and saw that they were certainly more than.

* * *

  
  


  
  


When night fell, the rain was still heavy. The sky was darker than dark and loud and bright with thunder and lightning. Jason stirred when one especially loud crack of thunder woke him. He got up and turned around the bed to look out the window on the far side of the room, and felt a thick fear slide down his throat at the sight of a person standing still in the middle of the rain and thunder and lightning. It only lasted for a second when he realized that the person was Chase.

Chase stood facing the sky with his eyes closed. The rain poured off of him and his clothes were heavy and dripping with it. Jason wondered what must have been going through Chase’s mind for him to want to go and stand in the middle of a storm. It made him worry.

The storm, to Chase, was like a long and cold shower, rinsing him clean of his burdens. Rinsing away the past five weeks. Rinsing away Jason. Rinsing away every mark made in his skin, in his soul, by him. Rinsing away the sickening fear that he’d lost control. Who was he? Before Jason arrived on the farm, Chase was cold and quiet and lonesome. He was ambitious and single-minded, had everything planned out to the very last detail. And Chase didn’t care about leaving anything behind, and now he felt as if _he_ was the one being left behind.

This feeling was foreign but not unknown. Jason was responsible.

The fingers gliding through his hair and touching him everywhere, making his skin hot, making his mind wild with feelings Chase could not map, could not plan, could not control. The shadow of warm lips still lingered on his; he still felt them on his neck, on his chin and his face and hands. He felt them everywhere. He felt _Jason_ everywhere, unnaturally, wildly, wickedly, coursing through his blood, emerging in his mind and in his dreams, taking from him what he was familiar with and replacing it with something reckless.

“Hey!”

To Chase, the rain was a cold shower,

“Chase, what are you doing!” Jason called from the porch. He stood at the very edge of what still remained mostly dry, hugging himself and squinting out into the darkness to seek Chase’s silhouette.

-rinsing this world of chaos off of him and into the ground.

“Chase!” Jason yelled again. Chase looked at him this time, having barely moved and just enough so to look at him from where he stood. He spit the rain from his lips and shut his eyes again, but this time did not face the sky.

To Chase, the rain was a cold shower, rinsing this world of chaos off of him and into the ground. Washing Jason off of him, his skin, his scent. The things which drove Chase to recklessness was being drowned by the soil. And yet, he still could not rid himself of that feeling.

“You shouldn’t be standing outside in this, you could get sick. You could get struck by lightning.” Jason called a final time, and this time Chase opened his eyes and headed for the porch. He was brought into Jason’s frantic arms when he was close enough and Jason ushered him back up the stairs. “You’re _freezing_ , what the hell were you thinking?”

“I’m fine.” Chase looked into Jason’s eyes in a way that made Jason worry for his sake. His eyes were distant and deep, as if he was looking through Jason rather than at him. Jason stopped trying to warm Chase’s arms with friction to look at him too.

“The hell you are. Come on, I’ll get you a towel.” As Jason tried to turn with Chase in his arms, Chase swung his arm up and shoved Jason away.

“I said I’m _fine_. Don’t touch me.” Chase shoved past him and went inside. Jason turned after him but did not follow.


	8. Chapter 8

Chase didn’t leave his room for days other than to eat. After pushing him away, all Jason could do was wonder what he’d done to offend him, but if he knew anything about Chase at all, it was that it didn’t take much to piss the guy off. Chase didn’t look at him, didn’t acknowledge him and didn’t speak to him, no matter what. It was driving him crazy and every attempt to try and stir up a conversation only resulted in silence.

Had they been seen? Jason assumed that because Chase returned the kiss that he hadn’t crossed any lines, but now, he wasn’t so certain. _Something_ had to’ve happened between now and then, Jason just didn’t know what.

At dinner in his sixth week at the Reed farm, Jason barely touched his food. He sat picking at it, only eating enough not to seem obviously upset to anyone. And it worked too. No one made a sound. Even Josee was quiet. It seemed that whatever was happening between them was affecting everyone, because if Yolanda wasn’t making conversation, at least Josee was humming or babbling to herself.

Finally, Jason couldn’t take the silence anymore. Chase was being childish. Whatever issues he had should have been voiced and dealt with, not bottled up and handled like this. Maybe if Jason put him on the spot, he’d speak. Jason had the sense that Chase had not made his parents aware of his gripes, and would refuse to do so if cornered.

“So Chase,” Jason stuck a fork full of macaroni in his mouth and purposely chewed while talking, hoping the annoyance of such a gesture might even earn him a look. “You’ve been quiet lately. Something wrong?” Act casual. Jason’s bottom line, his personal way of being passive-aggressive. Maybe Chase knew that by now, and maybe that was why, when he looked up, he looked up with a murderous look on his face. Jason smiled at him, smacking the noodles on his tongue just to be annoying.

“No.”

“Are ya sure? Because lately it seems like you’d had an extra wide pole up your back end and I’d just like to know why.” Jason’s sweet voice turned sour quickly. Jim clanked his fork loudly when he raised his head.

“Alright that’s enough. I’m not about to have y’all fightin’ at the table.” Jim made fierce eye contact with both Jason and Chase, taking turns to properly glare at them each.

“Okay, you wanna know what’s wrong?” Chase set his fork down, clanking it louder than Jim had.

“Love to.”

“Okay, here’s my problem. You come here not knowing _shit_ about how to take care of a farm, leaving me with the majority of the work everyday. You sleep in, you hog the hot water, eat like a pig and suddenly because I’ve been nice to you, you think we’re best friends. We’re not. And I wish you’d just leave so we can all get back to the way things were.” Chase shoved at the table on his way to his feet, skidding his chair over the floor and despite Jim demanding that he not walk away from the table, Chase did anyway. Silence fell over the remaining household members after hearing Chase slam his bedroom door.

“What on Earth was _that_ about?” Yolanda asked. She still had both hands full with fork and knife, looking around the table with big eyes.

Jason was sitting quietly with a hand over his mouth. He bounced his leg under the table angrily and before anyone could try and grab his direct attention, he got up from the table and left the kitchen, slamming his door almost as loudly as Chase had.

“I knew bringin’ that kid here was a bad idea.” Jim got up third from the table and excused himself.

“Jim-” Yolanda called for him exasperatedly and with long-suffering. He ignored her and she sighed defeatedly, being the second to last person at the table aside from Josee She and Josee looked at each other.

“I think Jason’s nice.” Josee said, twirling her child-sized fork around in her macaroni. Yolanda smiled with anguish and sighed again.

“I do too.”

  
  


  
  


The place smelled dramatically of booze and testosterone. Jason sat on a stool behind a long strip of wood where there was a man standing against a liquor cabinet with his nose down in a cellphone as big as his hand, which Jason thought was strange with this being the country. Or maybe that was all the more reason for him to own such a device, because, as Jason noticed early on, there wasn’t much to do in a town as small as this one.

A dark, hard, cold bottle sat cupped between his palms, sweating ice cold condensation while he mulled over the past several days. This would be his sixth beer and it was already half gone and Jason’s vision was already distorting. There was a faint line of sweat just under his hairline and he was flushed and warm to the touch, drunk, numb.

Things were going so well between the two of them. What in the world had transpired in Chase’s mind to have made him so angry at him? _‘..._ _and suddenly because I’ve been nice to you, you think we’re best friends. We’re not.’_ Was it really that simple? Had Jason just misread everything? He didn’t want to believe that he was the only one who’d started to feel things, didn’t want to believe that he’d just invested half the summer in someone who gave him no thought past an orgasm.

Jason knocked back the rest of his beer, growling at the fizzle that stung the back of his throat. He clanked the bottle to the wood with a thunk and pushed it forward so he could cross his arms over the top of the bar.

This sucked. Chase, funny and flirty and beautiful, with a deadly smile and a sharp, lovely laugh and eyes as blue as the sky with the sun streaking across it, had drawn him in and gotten him addicted to the way warmth-like-fire-burning spread along his flesh when their skin touched, had gotten him addicted to his voice, to the way his shoulder blades gyrated under his shirt when he worked, to the sharp arch in his back when Jason, like no one else, buried himself inside him and opened him up, brought out his voice, made him swear, made him dig his nails into the dirt and the skin on his arms and his back. Jason wasn’t sober. Chase was addicting. He was barbed and beautiful like a rose and Jason had gotten himself tangled up in the thorns.

“You look like you could use a friend.”

Jason turned his head, eyes landing on a tall girl with her hair dyed jet black—or maybe her hair really was that dark, but Jason doubted it due to the pale color of her skin. Her hair was long and straight as a board and she was wearing a white and brown checkered cowgirl shirt with the front tied up underneath her breasts, making them pop out. Jason’s eyes dropped immediately to her chest, shamelessly—blame the booze—and almost as soon as they did, he brought them up to look at her face. She didn’t seem to be offended by his shameless glance at her breasts. “I can’t be friends with somebody when I don’t know their name.” Jason slurred as he spoke and then turned back around to signal the bartender for another beer.

“Natalie. My _friends_ _,_ though, call me Nat.” Natalie pulled out the stool next to him and walked forward with her legs bowed out until her butt was planted on the seat. She had a deep, raspy, dike-y voice that Jason thought was charming on a face like hers, which would make you think she had a sweet, soft and delicate voice.

“Jason. Well, drunk Jason. Jason two-point-o.”

“Well, drunk Jason, what are you doing at the country club looking lonely for with a face like that?” Nat leaned forward and laid one arm on top of the other on the bar top. She turned to Jason, her hair falling and the ends folding on the surface where it was too long not to. Jason snorted, a fat, cheeky grin on his face as he looked over at her.

“Isn’t that something a guy would say?”

“I could be a guy, you never know.”

Jason was grinning at her. The bartender slid him his seventh beer and Jason reached out to catch it with his hands cupped and ready for it. “Yeah well you’re definitely selling the lady look, just saying.” Nat grinned too.

“I’m just bullshitting, I’m one-hundred percent female. You didn’t answer my question though.”

“Oh yeah,” Jason pulled his lips from the end of the bottle, set it down and swallowed with an ‘ahh’ before looking her way again. “Get this, I’m just a clueless summer farm hand. I think I kinda fell for the family’s son and I just totally got dumped before we were even dating.”

“Man that sucks.” She had a thick, oozing sarcasm in her tone and it made Jason roll his eyes with another snort. He had a feeling she was only trying to make light of the situation. “Who’s the lucky guy?”

“Chase Reed.” Jason smacked his lips once, tilting his head and giving her a glum grin, drunken eyes squinting.

“Yikes.” Nat bared her teeth and sucked in a breath. “That’s an ice cold catch huh? Everybody knows how cold Chase can be. I know a couple girls that tried asking him out and he turned them all down pretty rudely. He’s pretty to look at but he’s a heart breaker.” Jason flicked his eyebrows up once, turned and took another swig of his beverage.

“Mm,” _swig_ _,_ “Yeah, I kinda noticed. Hey, has he ever liked _anyone_? No lucky girls in his love life?”

“Well, he dated this one girl, Kennedy, liiike,” she mulled, “six, seven years ago, give or take? That lasted about a week.”

“Any guys?”

Nat laughed. “Shit no. He’s straight as a board. I mean, c’mon, the only person he’s ever dated in his _whole_ life was a girl.”

“I can promise you he’s not straight.”

Nat raised an eyebrow and popped one shoulder out. “How would you know? Chase and I grew up in this town together. We used to play in his yard when we were kids, I think I would have noticed if he had a thing for guys.”

“Mmm. Then explain to me how I know that there’s a birthmark under his left ass-cheek, how I know he likes his nipples played with, or how I know he likes it really rough?”

Nat blinked at him, then uncomfortably shifted to look down at her hands on the wood surface. “Wow, okay. Guess he fooled everybody then.”

“Yeah, he’s good at fooling people.”

“Still, though, I’d forget about Chase. You’re leaving anyway.”

“Yeah. You’re not wrong.” Jason took another heavy swig of the beer and decided that that would be his last drink of it. He pushed it forward. He would probably be hungover in the morning as it was, if he continued to drink much longer he’d end up sick before the night’s end.

Jason made the decision to treat Chase the way Chase was treating him. If he wanted to go cold and mean all of a sudden, Jason would return the favor.


	9. Chapter 9

It was time to groom the garden. Jason wore a pair of dark denim jeans and a tan plaid button up with it hanging open and exposing his chest. He and Chase were several rows away from each other, both picking off ripe and rotten vegetables in almost-silence. Chase glanced up at him every so often, wondering what Jason was thinking about, but Jason kept himself busy mumbling one of his favorite songs to himself. He pretended that he couldn’t feel the heat of Chase’s gaze on him, pretended he wasn’t having trouble focusing because of it.

All the while, Chase was distracted by the silence between them. He knew that his outburst the day before was uncalled for but he had only meant to put distance between them, not completely burn the bridge. Not that he should be assuming so soon that Jason’s lack of acknowledgment toward him was specifically for that reason, but he couldn’t help feeling as if he’d crossed a line that wasn’t meant to be crossed. Was Jason angry at him?

After an hour and a half of silence and no glances in his direction, Chase stood up, dusted his hands off on a bright blue pair of worn denim jeans and headed toward Jason. He was nervous, and when he approached him, Jason didn’t look up. “I’m going to go get a drink, want me to get you anything?”

“No thanks.” Jason, still not having looked up at him, continued to pull up weeds and pluck rotten or inedible long beans from the green bean plant he was focused on. He was about done.

“You sure? It’s hot outside toda-”

“Stop.” Jason looked up, sharp, serious, intimidating. Chase tensed up. “Just stop. I get it, you wanted to fool around, no strings attached. Now that we’re on the same page, I’d like to figure out how to do my job, since I’m an idiot who knows nothing about farming and all.” He looked back down and Chase sulked, a tightening in his throat forming.

“Jason-”

“I don’t want your kindness. Leave me alone.” Jason picked up a bucket that he was using to deposit the bad beans in and moved over to the next plant to start grooming it. Chase felt dread inch its way up his throat, closing it off. He swallowed, pushing down the lump, and turned around trembling and hot with anger, hurt, guilt.

Jason had to pause as Chase was out of earshot to let out the heavy breath he was keeping in his lungs. His shoulders dropped and he raised his hand, covered in a felt glove, and wiped his nose with the back of his hand before continuing to groom the bean plant.

Chase rounded the house, walked up the stairs on the front porch and immediately through the front door to the kitchen sink, which sat facing the backyard where he’d previously been tending to the garden. He grabbed a glass from the cabinet overhead and pushed the handle on the faucet up, filling the glass halfway, then shut the water off and brought the glass to his lips. His eyes fell on Jason’s distant figure from out of the window over the sink, watching.

His stomach, his heart, both shuddered and the paleness of his skin could be felt in the form of tingling heat on his face. While his eyes were cold on the outside, he was silently afraid that this silence would last. Maybe Jason needed space. Chase could understand that. Sometimes he preferred space when he was angry, so he would give Jason his space.

  
  


  
  


At dinner things weren’t much different. The silence seemed to saturate the atmosphere, affecting even Josee. Jim was always uptight as it was, so it was hard to tell whether or not he noticed anything. Yolanda was the intuitive one and she surely noticed, because she kept looking around the table at everyone, eating quietly. Josee kept her eyes down on her plate, absently playing with her food.

Ironically, the only person eating as if things were normal, was Jason. He didn’t bother to glance at any of the eyes that wandered his way and he didn’t dare, especially, look at Chase or so much as in his direction. Chase, on the other hand, couldn’t seem to keep his eyes away from him. He kept thinking to himself that he’d rather stab himself in the eyes than sit in this miserable, group silence.

“So how’s the food hun?” Yolanda asked with a bit of half chewed corn in her cheek. Jim looked up, holding a pork cutlet with both hands and eating it the old fashioned way. He was chewing too, but pushed his food to one side of his mouth and spoke through one side of his lips so that he could respond to her.

“Good. You do sum’ different with the pork?” Jim swallowed, washing his food down with a glass of milk beside his plate.

“I added some steak sauce this time. I guess you like it?”

“Mhm. Mashed taters are good too. I can taste the cream cheese good n’ well.” He reached for her hand and kissed the back of it when she obliged. Yolanda smiled at him and then cupped one hand over the other, elbows on the table’s top and her arms stuck straight up. She looked at Chase, who looked at her and they shared a gaze which felt verbal.

“So I noticed you boys got done early today. Good job.” Yolanda said.

“Thanks. There wasn’t much else to do.” Chase glanced at Jason who _finally_ looked back at him. It was apparent that Jason knew he was being mentioned, and he wasn’t very pleased with it by the look of his eyes.

Yolanda looked between them, aware of the tense air around them. Her eyes stopped on Chase. “Is there something wrong to’ve made you two mad at each other?”

“No.”—“No.” Both Jason and Chase spoke in unison, then looked at each other. Chase’s glance lingered, while Jason turned back to glance at Yolanda before looking down at his plate, continuing to eat. Yolanda gave them both a strange look, though her eyes seemed more suspicious when they were planted on Jason. Her mouth hung open and she was quiet, probably well aware of the lack of truth in their response and also probably having no idea what else to say.

“If you’re mad you should just say sorry and be friends again.” Josee surprised everyone at the table when she opened her mouth, and she leaned over her food to look at Chase from around Jason. Chase couldn’t help smiling at her, although he was offended.

“Why do you assume _I’m_ the one who should say sorry?”

“Because you hurt Jason’s feelings, right Jason?” She looked at Jason, still looking at her, and he smiled at her. Then he turned his head around and looked at Chase.

“I have no idea what I did to make you so angry.”

Jim, Yolanda and Josee were quiet. All of their eyes were on the two of them but Chase would _not_ have this private discussion here, not in front of everyone. “Nothing. You didn’t do anything.” That was all he could say. Jason didn’t seem satisfied with his reply. 

“Why then?”

Chase shook his head, shrugged and timidly looked down at his plate. Jason laughed breathlessly, grabbing his plate and leaning forward. He addressed Jim, “May I please be excused?”

“You may.”

Then Jason got up. He left his plate in the sink before leaving the kitchen. Chase heard the guest room door shut a moment later.

  
  


  
  


Curfew was midnight. Both Jason and Chase were expected to be back on the farm by midnight should they go out anywhere. Jason decided that everyone was asleep by two in the morning, so he got out of bed and shuffled quietly to get dressed, then crept through the house, reaching and sneaking out of the front door in the kitchen.

He didn’t have a vehicle but he had a pair of strong and durable legs, and they carried him four miles or so into the country club in town. He sat down at the bar and ordered a beer.

“God, you look like a lost dog.” Nat. Jason looked over and he discovered that she was sitting a couple of seats over with her hair up and twisted into a wild bun on the top of her head. The back of her hair, the part which Jason had not seen last night when he met her, was green, bright, lime green. And tonight she was wearing a massive pair of broad-frame glasses on her nose, all black and box shaped. They made her face look cute.

Her top eyelids had a neat, black strip across them and drawn-on wings that streaked out about half an inch from the outer corners of her eyes. And then her eyelashes were accentuated with mascara. Jason thought she was fine to look at.

“Woof woof.” Jason tilted his head back and took a six second chug from his beer. A few drops fell and hit the chest of his shirt.

“Impressive.” Nat drawled at him sarcastically.

Jason wiped his mouth, “I wasn’t trying to impress you, but you’re on now.” He ordered a second beer so that he could chug the rest of his first and then begin on his second. Nat chuckled at him, ordering two beers at the same time.

“I bet you suck.”

“Well I’ve been told that I have a talented tongue.”

“Tsh. Jesus, pervert.” Nat bumped him with her arm and Jason laughed. “Twenty seconds, bet?”

“All I’ve got is a twenty and I need that to pay.”

“Okay, then how about I pay if you win.”

“And if I lose?”

“Ohh~ look who’s insecure. If you lose,” she looked around the bar, eyes falling on an oldies jukebox on the far side wall. She bumped his arm again and nudged her head in the direction of the jukebox, to which Jason turned to briefly look at. “If you lose then you have to do Cotton Eyed Joe. I’m guessing you’d look pretty stupid doing it.”

“Alright, it’s a bet.” Jason held his hand out to her and they shook on it.

The bartender set their beers down in front of them, caps already popped off. Jason took one and Nat took the other two. “You ready?” Nat asked. She raised a bottle to her lips, watching as Jason did the same with the full bottle. “Go.” At the same time they tilted their heads back and started gulping. With her wrist on the bar top, Nat lifted a finger on her hand until she reached five, then started over.

The beer felt like liquid nitrogen going down his throat and he had to squeeze his eyes until his eyelids turned white and he tensed up to keep from responding to the impulse to stop. His efforts only lasted until twelve seconds in when he had to stop and groan hard to fight the cold needles piercing the back of his throat. Nat put her bottle down and laughed at him, pointing. “Hah haaah!” She drawled. “Fuckin’ loseeeeer.” Jason had to groan a second time, throat still hurting.

“I can’t believe I just lost to a girl.”

“Bet your ass you did. Get up, time t’pay up stranger.” Nat got off of the stool and grabbed his wrist. His body turned and followed her as she pulled and she led him to the jukebox at the back of the bar against the wall.

“I don’t even know how to do the cotton Joe, or whatever you called it.”

Nat chuckled. “Cotton Eyed Joe, and I’ll teach you.” She pulled a bill from a billfold, entered it into the quarter dispenser next to the jukebox and then entered three of them into it. When the song started, Jason looked up at the ceiling with a pained grin.

“Jesus, how do you people listen to this crap?”

Nat turned toward him. “You poor uncultured thing. Alright look, watch me until you think you’ve got it, then follow my lead.” She started to dance, bouncing her feet, swaying, all in perfect synchronization to the music. Jason started to sway a little while watching her feet. She kept on laughing at him, which completely destroyed his confidence.

It didn’t take him long to get the moves down, seeing as they were so simple. “There ya go.” Nat said, a proud tone. She grabbed him suddenly and took the leading role. Jason was twirled, swung and treated like the woman, which was all very embarrassing. He enjoyed it nonetheless.

“That wasn’t so bad.” Jason pulled apart from her as the song ended—and thank God it did—and stuck his hands into his pockets. “But it was still pretty bad.”

“Different strokes.” She said. “You wanna listen to something else? I’ll let you pick.”

“Yeah.” Nat put in a few more quarters and Jason walked up to and stood over the jukebox screen. He swiped through the songs, trying to find any song he recognized that he _liked_. His eyes settled on a particular song that he’d only ever heard on the internet and his face lit up. “Okay, how about this one?” Jason tapped the screen and the song started to play overhead.

“I don’t know this one.”

“In The Corner Dunce.” Jason bounced lightly to the beat. Then suddenly the song, unexpectedly, sped up and Nat made a grinning, confused expression at it. The beat slowed back down and a rhythm formed. Then Nat started to bob her head.

“I kinda like it. Who sings it?”

“Aleka’s Attic. This song’s old and it’s not all that popular but that’s the reason I like it.”

“I’ll have to look ‘em up. Rock your favorite genre?”

“I don’t really have a favorite genre. I like all kinds of music.”

“Yeah? Lemme play another one. Tell me what you think of it.” Nat added the rest of her quarters and chose a few songs. Tennessee Whiskey came on and Nat started to sway. She reached up to pull the hair bow from her hair, letting all of it fall and when it did it fell in beautiful, glossy waves. Jason felt the moment between them change.

Nat was only wearing a tank top. It was solid black and she had on a pair of skinny jeans with it, cowgirl boots sticking up around the cuffs, which were tucked in. She made the first move, nothing about her shy and with a flirty smile on her face, taking his shoulders. Jason smiled back at her, then wound his arms around the small of her waist. He pressed against her and she pressed against him too, and they started to sway, stepping forward, back, to the sides, forward, back, in no particular order, simply swaying.

“It’s too bad you’re gay, I’d so kiss you right now.” Nat looked up at him, only maybe an inch or two shorter than him, but she was slouching slightly with her body pressed up against him so that she _could_ look up at him.

“Mm.” Jason hummed at her. “I see what you’re doing there.”

“And what’s that?”

“You wanna know if I like girls as much as I like guys.”

“Perceptive. Smart. Funny. You’re ridiculously sexy. It should be illegal.”

Jason grinned open-mouth at her, a faint chuckle rising out of his throat. “Well since we’re complimenting each other, you’re not so bad yourself. But you don’t give off the impression that you’re into guys.”

“Why, cause of my deep voice?” She tucked her chin and deepened her voice, then said, “’Cuz I talk like a man?”

Jason laughed. “That, and you just, really really look like a lesbian.”

“I’m gonna pretend you didn’t just lump me into a stereotype. And it’ll knock your socks off, but I’m strictly dickly. Not much for the girl drama.”

The atmosphere was innocent and light and Jason felt completely comfortable with her, even having just been confessed to. Nat was a smooth-talker and that was sexy. Jason thought a lot of things about her were sexy.

“Where I come from, usually girls that look like you are gay.”

“And where do you come from?”

“New York.”

Nat molded her neck with her chin and widened her eyes. “Fuck dude, what are you doing all the way out here in Ohio?”

“A relative of mine died recently and I’m supposed to inherit his farm, so I took up the job of working with the Reeds to learn how to take care of one.”

“Ah, I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Don’t be. Didn’t know him. The last time I saw him was when he still lived in New York. I was two or three I think.”

“Lucky he loved you enough. It’s hard work but having a farm is rewarding.”

“Yeah. I’ll probably sell it and use the money to start a business or something.”

“Why sell it? You can make a decent living running a farm.”

“Farm life isn’t really for me. I’ve been doing it for almost two months now, and I haven’t even been doing the heavy duty stuff.”

Nat snorted. “Heavy duty. I can tell you aren’t from here by the way you talk.”

Jason feigned an offended expression. “How do I talk?”

“Like you’re trying not to offend somebody but also like you’re trying to sound like you know what you’re talking about. It’s kinda cute.” She smiled. He smiled. Then she stood on her toes, leaning up and forward, and hesitated as she slowly leaned in to kiss him, as if she was asking for his permission. Jason didn’t reject her, and instead closed off the rest of the distance that she left.

The kiss wasn’t wild or fierce or hot, but slow and tame and gentle. Her lips were soft, thick, warm and kissable. Both hers and his eyes closed and they swayed gently to the song. Nat brushed her fingers up along his neck, brushing them up into his hair and she curled her fingers into it. Jason’s hands lowered, lower, stationing on her hips and the fingertips of one hand curiously brushed up the hem of her tank top, feeling of her flesh, her warm flesh, directly over the waistline of her jeans.

Nat parted her lips, Jason following, and pressed the tip of her tongue underneath his lips, testing him, finding his boundaries. Jason swept his tongue over hers, then hers over his, and then they were making out to Tennessee Whiskey as it was ending. When she pulled back, she bit his chin, then her lip and then grinned dazedly up at him.

“Wanna get out of here?” Nat was the one to ask. Good thing too, because Jason never would have, not to a woman with such self confidence and bite-me sass.

“Take me away, your majesty.”

Nat rolled her eyes, but she started for the door with her hand on his wrist. They tangled their fingers loosely together and Jason paid on his way out the door.

  
  


  
  


They were dancing, touching, _kissing_. Then they were heading for the door. Chase backed away from the windowed door, back against the wall beside it, and held his breath as Jason was led outside with his hand laced with Nat’s. She brought him to an old Volkswagen and they got in together. Chase watched them back out and drive away and from where he stood he could just barely make out the outline of Jason’s shadow leaning to her side, attaching himself to her neck.

It almost made him sick. Was that what rejection felt like? Chase had never been rejected before, but only because he’d never really been interested in anyone to begin with. And what about Jason? Was this what he felt like when Chase lashed out at him?

There was a symphony of voices howling at him inside his mind. Most of them were angry, but there was a small voice that could just barely be heard underneath all the others that told him he deserved it, that it was for the best anyway. Jason was leaving. He was leaving. They’d had a fling. That was it. Try as he might to get that through his head, Chase felt betrayed anyway.

He drove home quickly, hoping not to be caught out past curfew.


	10. Chapter 10

It hurt. Why did it hurt? Offense could at least be understood, but Chase wasn’t offended, he felt as if he’d been stabbed in the back. But had he been, really?

He stood in front of the mirror hanging on the inside of his closet door staring at himself with his arms crossed. He hugged himself as if he was cold, staring into the blue eyes behind his round, obnoxiously large glasses. _What’s wrong with me?_ His heart was pounding, not that you’d know it. _This is wrong_.

At first it was all just some fun, a way to rebel, to flip a finger at all of the suffocating rules and limits and restrictions in his life that backed him into a skin that wasn’t his own. It felt right and good and real and Chase knew that he was getting dangerously attached to those new habits, knew that he was even enjoying them more than he should have, so he’d pushed Jason away to block him from weaseling his way into getting Chase to keep doing it. What he hadn’t expected was being replaced, and that, Chase realized, was exactly the feeling that it gave him.

Jason hadn’t returned and it was almost seven in the morning. Chase could smell Yolanda making breakfast in the kitchen and he assumed she would be done soon. It bothered him that Jason hadn’t even come home after doing—whatever it was he was doing. Was he okay? Would he be back? Somehow it felt as if the day was not bright so long as Jason wasn’t there.

He heard the front door close from his room and jerked his head to the bedroom door. Was that Jason? Was he back? Chase turned around and hurriedly opened his bedroom door in time to see Jason walking into the guest room. The guest room door shut. Chase stood in his doorway staring at the other door, still with his arms crossed.

No hello, no sorry I was out so late, nothing. Just silence. Chase sighed, slumping.

“Breakfast!” That was Yolanda. Chase perked up when he heard her voice because Jason would be expected to join the table for breakfast and perhaps then Chase would get some answers or at least be glanced at.

Chase shook his head. _I sound desperate_ _._ He turned around to undress from his night clothes and into a suitable outfit for the day.

The garden was already groomed. After feeding the animals, they would both have the rest of the day to do whatever they pleased. Chase put his energy into concocting a way to get Jason alone—not for _that_ reason—so that they could talk.

To his surprise though, Jason did not join them for breakfast. No one asked about him. If Jim were here, he’d certainly make a comment about Jason’s absence. For once, Chase wished his dad had been present for breakfast. He would have loved to hear Jim get worked up over the so-called disrespect of Jason not showing up to eat.

  
  


  
  


It wasn’t until they were both mucking out the stables that the two of them found themselves alone in each others’ company. In the middle of pushing soiled hay toward the stable doors, Chase stopped. “Jason.” No reply. “Jason?” He said again, and Jason didn’t reply this time either. “Hello? Earth to Jason.” Finally he turned around, stopping too and fixing Chase with an awfully mean pair of eyes.

“What?”

Chase wanted to snap at him, berate him for using such a tone, but he didn’t want to make things any worse, so he took a breath and made his eyes cold. “Why are you avoiding me?”

“I’m not avoiding you. Not really.”

“You won’t talk to me. At all.”

“I mean, I kinda don’t really _want_ to, if I’m being honest.” He went about pushing hay again and Chase took a huffy breath, rolling his eyes and settling them high on the stable wall.

“Why?” He fixed his eyes back on Jason. “Because I told you we weren’t friends?”

Jason exhaled a laugh, abruptly stopping to turn and face Chase. “Are you really that unaware?”

“Unaware? Of what?”

“How insensitive you are? How rude you are?”

Chase was floored. Insensitive, maybe, but rude? Chase thought of himself as respectful and kind. “How am I rude?”

“Y’know,” his eyes wandered, “I might not have grown up on a farm and I know I don’t know half the stuff you do, but I’ve been working my butt off. I’m not used to it being ninety degrees or hotter almost every day, and I’m especially not used to working in that kind of heat. And you can’t just lead someone on and then blame them for _being led on_.”

Led on? Jason felt as if he’d been led on? “Lead you on? I never led you on.”

“No?”

“We had sex. How is that me leading you on?” Chase’s stomach fluttered at the direct wording. Why did he find it so satisfying to say that?

“Because you’d give me this look sometimes, and you’d tell me things.”

“I was being _nice_ to you, asshole. Believe it or not, I _am_ capable of kindness.”

“Okay, so you were just being nice. What about when I told you I wanted more? Did you hear that part? Or did you forget? I believe that’s a good enough reason to assume I’m interested. If you weren’t, you should have said something.”

“I _did_ _!_ I told you that you were leaving. I told you we were too different, that things were too complicated. I told you it wouldn’t work, but you wouldn’t take the hint. That’s why I was mean when I said what I did, because then you’d have to listen.” He felt betrayed by his own words, even though they were true. What he didn’t want was to make Jason angrier.

“Yeah, I got that, _now_.” Jason pushed the hay harder with his pitchfork.

“I saw you with Nat.” Chase held his breath. He wanted to press a button, take that back. Why had he said it? He closed his eyes, berating himself quietly.

Jason stopped, slowly this time, and turned his head, again, to Chase. He slowly turned his whole body to face him. “You followed me?”

“I was worried about you.”

“Is there a reason you should be worried about me?”

Chase pressed his lips together. He paused, then said, “You left with her. Is that why you didn’t come back?” He tried to sound concerned, but inside he was festering and mad. _You left and slept with her. You slept with her. Slept with her_ _._ Chase swallowed to keep those thoughts from materializing.

“Yeah. I stayed the night. At least there I felt welcome.”

“Did you sleep with her?” He had an itch nowhere and everywhere, one that hurt, stung, burned. He swallowed, staring Jason down. Jason laughed heartily at him.

“See, _that’s_ what I mean by being led on. Why, are you mad about it?”

“So you did?” Chase hoped he was just being paranoid and defensive because, for some reason, the thought of Jason sleeping with someone else made him queasy. He assumed that the reason for it was probably because Jason was his first and he was, admittedly, possessive over things and people he cared about. Jason was included on that list.

“Yes. I slept with her.”

 _No. No no no._ Chase was—he was angry, _angry_ , but also terribly hurt. He was hot, pale, sweating (was he really sweating?), trembling. No, not sweating, _crying_. Chase swallowed, looking away. A couple of small tears slid down his cheek. Jason had noticed and on instinct wanted to dry them away, but he kept himself rooted to his spot.

“Okay.” Chase said. His voice was almost normal, almost. He cleared his throat, walked out of the stable. He knew Jason had slept with her. Why else would they have kissed and left the bar together? And why else would Jason not have come back until the morning? Why _else_ and why was he so fucking _angry_ about it? It wasn’t until Jason confirmed it that the reality of it had really sunk in.

Jason exhaled, realizing only then that he’d been holding in a lot of air. He felt guilty, even though he knew there was nothing for him to feel guilty about. Chase seemed to contradict himself. He claimed to not be interested, but his body was embarrassingly honest. Then again, was Jason just misreading that too? What was it about sleeping with Nat that upset him to the point of tears? Was it the prospect of how quickly it had happened? Did Chase feel replaced? Could there have really been a possibility that Chase was lying through his teeth?

  
  


  
  


Chase didn’t join the table for dinner. It was then that Jason began to truly consider that there might have been more to the situation than Chase was letting on. Chase was good at composing himself, which was probably why seeing him cry was such a bizarre event.

“Is Chase okay?” Jason asked, stalling his fork on his plate. He looked at Yolanda because Jim was frightening. Yolanda grabbed her napkin and swept it across her lips.

“He said he wasn’t feeling well.”

Jason didn’t respond. He didn’t feel much like eating, mind on Chase. “May I be excused?” Jim nodded once and Jason got up, setting his plate in the sink.

He walked back to his room, but stopped and looked at Chase’s door. It was cracked and dark inside. Jason tiptoed further down the hall until he reached Chase’s bedroom door, then he stopped and placed his palm on it, pushing gently. The room was completely dark. Chase was laying on his stomach asleep, fully dressed and uncovered.

“Chase?” He spoke quietly. If Chase was awake he’d hear him, but he didn’t want to wake him if he was asleep as he appeared to be. No reply. Jason crept inside, crouching next to him. He tilted his head, admiring the shadows that streaked across his face and the smooth curves of it. Chase’s cheek was puffy because of the way he was laying and Jason thought it was sweet.

Jason pulled the blanket over him so that he wouldn’t get cold in the middle of the night.

The warmth of his cheeks blossomed like a web over the backs of Jason’s fingers. His breath was faint but warm and the steady in-and-out, rise and fall of his back as he inhaled and exhaled calmed him, calmed his soul. _Beautiful._


	11. Chapter 11

There was a hand pressed into his spine. He gasped, arched, was kissed on his throat and the tips of Jason’s hair tickled his jaw. His arms were high above his head, pinned there under the hot palm of Jason’s hand and a wet spot swirled over his Adam’s apple. A filthy noise escaped his mouth and where that hand was pressing into his spine burned as it slid down, grabbed him from under his thigh and pushed it into his stomach.

“Do you want me?” Jason kissed his chin with those words uttered into the tiny hairs covering him. He raised his head and looked down at Chase, laying halfway on top of him.

“I want you.” Chase said. He drew his fingertips along Jason’s finely toned abdomen, along the faint indent on his chest, over his clavicles, up his neck and into his hair. Jason turned his mouth into his wrist and kissed it, keeping his eyes on Chase and Chase kept his eyes on Jason. “Do _you_ want _me?_ ”

“I want you.” Jason whispered. He leaned in and breathed on Chase’s lips. Chase closed his eyes, parted his lips and lifted his chin. _Kiss me_. He thought, waiting— _kiss me, Jason_ —hoping, lusting.

  
  


  
  


“Kiss me. Kiss me.” Chase sat up abruptly and with a startle, looking around his room. He’d been talking in his sleep, dreaming—his face burned—about Jason. Dreaming about being naked with Jason, being held by Jason, kissed by him, touched by him, tasted, lips on his skin and he was painfully _hard_ , he realized when his erection twitched in response to the memory of his dream.

 _Great_ _._ Having a sex dream, and about Jason. Right, it had been a little while and he was starting to need release.

Chase turned for a look at the alarm clock sitting on the stand next to his bed. After seven. He inhaled through his nose and smelled Yolanda’s cooking. He had time.

Sliding out of bed, Chase padded to the door and quietly locked it, then he slipped back into bed and pulled the blanket over himself. He reached down, dipped his fingers under the waistband of his pajama pants and slid his hand further down, grabbing himself. He closed his eyes and pressed into the bed to get comfortable, then started to stroke.

 _Up, down, twist._ Chase bit down on his lip. _Up, down, twist. Pull, twist._

 _Do you want me?_ Jason’s dream voice rung in his head and a bolt of sweet warmth shot through his hips. He sped up, but felt guilty for it almost immediately afterward. _No, it’s wrong_ _._ He emptied his mind, again focusing on the motions and the feelings emanating up his stomach and down his thighs.

Heat. Pressure. _Pull, twist, pull, twist._ Chase arched his hips higher. He furrowed his eyebrows, reaching in his mind for that feeling, trying to will it to expand, consume him, but it wouldn’t. He was hard, horny but not able to progress.

 _I bet you sound magnificent when you make noise._ Chase moaned aloud, not loudly but not quietly either, arching his back into the bed. Halfway spiked to almost and his hand started to go faster. He panted, skin getting hot, hips going numb, heart fluttering. The build stopped near his peak. Chase tried to cum but again he was unable to go further.

Chase stopped. He sat up, taking the waistband of his pants and slid them down and off, shirt following, then he laid back down, bent up both knees and reached back down with both hands this time. With his middle finger, he pressed, twirled and slowly pushed in, twisting, pulling and pumping in the process with his other hand. A deep, shaky inhale tore through his lungs and his back arched again.

He pulled and pushed his finger, twirled it, then slowly pushed in a second finger, stretching and searching for his prostate, and he only knew that he’d found it when pressing against it shot sensations up his spine like an electric shock.

Chase remembered him touching him, sliding his hands up his throat, around his neck and a burning tingle ghosted across his skin where he remembered being touched. Licking him, kissing him, biting, scratching, pushing, hot and raw and desperate and the _face_ he wore whenever he’d climax, uttering Chase’s name, brought him to the very edge. Chase curled his toes and arched his back more sharply than he had previously and hot ropes of cum shot across his stomach. His whole body shuddered and all of his willpower went towards keeping the barrage of sounds inside his chest.

When his high subsided, Chase pulled his fingers out of himself and the other released from his cock. He melted into the mattress, deflating.

  
  


  
  


Chase was awkward around Jason all morning. Since it was Sunday, they had no chores, so Chase retreated to his room to avoid bumping into Jason and being reminded of the dream, among other things. Jason had been overly aware of Chase compared to the past couple of days due to their heart-to-heart the day prior in the stables. That only served to make Chase feel more on edge.

Chase only left his room to eat and go to the bathroom, until evening when he was sure that everyone was asleep. Around eleven, he left the room with Wuthering Heights tucked under his arm and headed outside to sit on the front porch swing, planning to read for a while.

The world was still alive. Crickets chirped, frogs croaked and little bursts of light flashed around the house. Chase pulled himself sideways onto the swing and watched and listened to the sights and sounds of the nightlife, finding peace with himself in them. It smelled of Earth and that smell soothed him.

The little book light that he used to read with in the dark flickered as he pushed the button to turn it on. He hooked it on the book back and bent it into place, eyes finding the words.

Even though Chase had read this book many times, he could never tire of it. Even though he could probably narrate the whole thing out loud without referencing a single page, he liked to read anyway because it made his mind quiet. If he was having trouble falling asleep, all he would ever have to do was open that book and read, and soon his eyes would grow heavy and he would find himself asleep. It was his favorite story for as long as he could remember, and not even for the story itself, but for the memories attached to it.

The real reason that Chase loved that book so much was because of an old childhood friend named Derek. He used to live close when they were twelve or so, and they’d became friends quickly. Yolanda always marveled at the closeness of their relationship, but she never questioned it. That was the first time Chase had ever developed a crush on anyone, and that book, that old, raggedy book, was Derek’s favorite book. He loved it because his mother read it to him every night at bedtime and it was all he had left of her when she passed away.

Though, Derek and his father moved a couple of years later. Chase was about fourteen, and Derek had forgotten the book in Chase’s room. When they parted ways, they’d lost all contact and Chase had not heard from him again, so that book meant the world to him. It was a piece of his first love that was left behind, meant to stay with him and remind him of all the laughter and smiles that they’d shared, of his first kiss, of simpler times.

Chase was too far in denial to acknowledge that his feelings were far beyond platonic. Even though he’d known it at the time, he was convinced that it was a phase, some silly thing that boys went through sometimes that didn’t mean anything now. But sometimes he still thought of Derek and wondered what his life might have been like if he’d never left.

They might have become something more than they were. Chase might have been freed from this place but...he never would have met Jason. Smart and funny and absolutely amazing Jason. Chase admired probably everything about him. He was different, like a fresh breeze from a place he’d never been, a colorful painting to admire or an exquisite poem that only Chase understood in its context.

But he didn’t know it. He knew he was fond of him, sometimes dangerously attracted to him, but he didn’t understand how deeply rooted that admiration for him was, or how much it had affected him. Jason was probably the only person in the world that didn’t feel like a stranger.

“Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.” Chase uttered the sentence out loud to himself, hushed, in almost a whisper. He wasn’t even on that page, but those words popped into his head and made him pause. He stared down at the page he was on without really seeing it and felt something stir in his gut at the thought of those words.

Chase closed his book and turned out the book light. He looked over the back of the swing and saw lightning in the distance. Purple, faint, bright and too far away to be heard. He assumed there was a storm rolling in. Either that or it was rolling past them without a peep.

“Knock knock.” Chase quickly darted his gaze to the front door and there was Jason, standing there with his arms crossed like he was cold. “Mind if I join you?” He asked.

“Okay.” He felt silly for giving such a short reply, but Jason took it and approached, sitting down on the opposite side of the swing as Chase moved his feet to the porch floor. He sat at the far end as if he wanted to be as far away from Chase as possible without it being overly obvious that he was trying to create distance between them. Chase assumed that it had something to do with his awkward avoidance earlier.

“Can’t sleep?”

“No. I thought I would read and see if it makes me sleepy.”

“Is it working?”

“Not yet.” Chase couldn’t keep the memory of the last time they were on the swing together out of his mind. They were so close, touching each other, sharing intimate thoughts and Chase wanted to feel that again. His skin seemed to burn, aching for the touch of Jason’s skin, as if they were parts of a whole meant to fit together.

“Oh. Sorry.”

“Why are _you_ apologizing?”

“I dunno, just felt like the right thing to say.” Jason glanced over. His eyes were tired and heavy and the need for sleep was thick in his voice.

“You seem tired.”

“I am. I kept tossing and turning though, so I figured I’d just go ahead and get up.”

Silence fell. They both looked in different directions, away from each other, and sat in silence together. Jason’s thoughts were slow and quiet, but Chase’s were loud and insistent. His mind was full of Jason, overwhelmed by his presence. “Hey Jason?” He spoke with an inhale, anxious. Jason looked his way, scratching his cheek sleepily.

“Hm?” His eyes were lidded.

Chase’s stomach stuttered, more than fluttered, and ached in anticipation and anxiety. He chewed the skin on his lip, wishing to find the courage to stuff his words back into his mouth and divert the conversation. He wanted to escape, afraid of this. It wasn’t alright. It was dangerous. This was dangerous. The way he felt and the things he wanted to do were dangerous.

“What?” Jason asked again when Chase didn’t answer him. Suddenly then, Chase darted forward, palms on his shoulders and his glasses got pushed up slightly from how fiercely he kissed Jason.

It didn’t matter that his parents were just a few walls away, that this was wrong or that he’d just contradicted everything he’d said yesterday. All that mattered was the kiss that Jason returned. He set his hands on either side of Chase’s neck and pushed toward him, moving his lips along Chase’s, savoring him, taking him in.

Chase broke apart their lips to keep himself from doing anything else. He pulled away, one knee on the swing and the foot of the other leg on the wood. Jason looked up at him with a faint smile. “I wish you knew how you made me feel.”

Those embarrassing words brought color to Chase’s cheeks. “Tell me, then I’ll know.”

As Chase sat down, Jason turned on the swing so that he was facing him. Then he said, picking one of Chase’s hands up and holding it, “I would if I knew how to word it.” He stroked the middle of Chase’s palm, looking directly into his eyes.

“It doesn’t have to be perfect.”

“Okay.” Jason pulled Chase’s hand up to his lips and kissed its palm. “You make me feel high. And I’m addicted to you.”

Those words were so honest and naked. Chase wondered how in the world someone could ever say those things with a straight face. “Addicted to me?” Chase grinned, winced, both flattered and embarrassed.

“Mhm.” Jason kissed his palm again and then laced his own fingers through Chase’s. “Completely hooked. I wish you felt the same way about me.” With their hands together, Jason twisted them so that he could brush his lips over the back of Chase’s hand. He breathed out, warmth tingling in the blonde hairs in his skin. “But that’s okay, I’m just glad that you don’t pull away from me when I do things like this.” And to further emphasize his point, he kissed the back of Chase’s hand a third time, then up his wrist and halfway up the lower half of his arm before stopping.

His chest tightened. Why were those words painful? Was painful even the right word to describe it? They ached and pressed against his breastbone when they were spoken. It wasn’t necessarily pain that he felt, but the afterthoughts of something that he could not place. A shadow without a defined shape.

“I should probably try to go to bed. Night.” Jason plucked his hand from Chase’s and stood up with a soft smile, then walked back inside. _No, don’t leave._ Chase wanted more, to be touched longer, harder. He wanted another kiss.

Then, with a gasp and a tight lurch in his chest, Chase realized why. _I love you._


	12. Chapter 12

Seven years ago, when he was half a foot shorter with oilier skin and shaggy, messy hair that wasn’t even to his shoulders yet, Chase sat up in a tree house that his father built for him. He liked to go there and read, sometimes to draw, and especially to play with Derek, who was his best friend.

Derek was taller, just as thin and had braces. He looked like one of those school bullies, with his short spiky hair and his long sleeves and khaki shorts, but Derek could not have been a kinder soul. He was just like Chase in that he didn’t quite get along with others. He liked to read and paint and he was learning to play the piano, far from the skills of their peers, so neither one of them really belonged with the crowd.

He was alone until Derek surprised him, climbing over the cut-out in the floor from the ladder. Chase startled, not having expected him. “Hey.” Derek said. Chase closed the book in his lap and crawled toward him to give him a hand into the tree house. “Thanks.”

“I thought you were supposed to go with your dad today.”

“He changed his mind. Why, aren’t you happy to see me?” Derek dusted the knees of his jeans off and sat down in front of Chase, legs bent and crossed. Chase did the same.

“Of course I’m happy to see you. I just didn’t know you were coming.”

“Surprise. What’cha readin’?” Derek peered over and Chase raised his book, handing it over. “The Count of mont, monty-”

“The Count of Monte Cristo. It’s a little bit hard to read but I like it.”

“What’s it about?”

“This man wants to marry a girl but he’s too poor. And as soon as he gets everything he ever wanted, his best friend betrays him and he goes to prison on an island for something he didn’t do. I haven’t gotten any further yet but it’s really good so far. You should read it sometime.”

“Lemme see.” Derek reached for the book, taking it and turning it over to read its back. He looked up at Chase with a crooked smile.

“You read crazy stuff.”

“How so?”

“It’s so long. I don’t think I could read anything with that many pages.” Derek handed the book back and Chase took it, setting it aside.

They both fell silent, looking awkwardly at each other. Recently their dynamic had evolved and neither of them understood in what way. But they felt different around each other. It started with Chase, who smiled more than usual when they were together, and then Derek started doing things to impress Chase. He wanted to seem cool.

“Can I kiss you?” Derek asked, looking iffy about his question. Iffy and shy, thinking Chase would make fun of him for asking, but Chase blushed and then gave him a timid nod.

He got up and crawled toward him, stopping in front of him on all fours, stared with uncertainty in his eyes. Chase started to leaned forward, doing so in slight, jerky movements, until their lips just barely brushed together. After two seconds without moving, they pulled apart.

  
  


  
  


Chase looked for Derek for years, but no one that knew him knew where he’d gone. It took him a while to forget about Derek, to move on as though he’d never entered his life. By then he’d met Jason and fallen for him. That innocent love he felt as a child was far from the torrid, desperate love he felt for Jason. As a child, there were few consequences because when you were that young, no one expected you to know what you were doing. As an adult? Chase knew right from wrong now, and he knew that being in love with another man was wrong in and of itself, but acting on those feelings, such as he’d done, was unforgivable.

Could those actions be overlooked? Could they be justified? Forgiven? Chase began to wonder if forgiveness was really that important, and then felt immense guilt for his moment of apathy.

What did this mean? Chase now realized that he’d been in love with two men in his life, never a woman and never had he felt attraction to a woman either. He could see beauty, but a woman’s chest didn’t have the same effect on him as what was below a man’s belt. No part of a woman made him lust, but every part of a man did. Jason wasn’t the first man he’d lusted after, he was only the first he was consciously _aware_ of lusting after. At least until now, when those attractions were brought to the forefront. How many had there been?

A passing glance and an appreciation, an admiration for the male build, all assumed platonic, now revealed itself as more.

Sexual orientation was a choice. Or at least, that was what Chase was raised to believe. But he was realizing otherwise. Had he chosen this? Had he really decided one day that he wanted to like men? When had it even started?

He stood naked in front of the medicine cabinet mirror in the bathroom. There was fog covering all but a circular spot in the mirror from a recent shower and he was dripping with water. The towel he had out was still folded on top of the toilet.

And as he stared at himself, he touched his chest and thought: _What if I was born a woman? It wouldn’t be wrong then._ But Chase liked being born a man. He didn’t feel as if nature had made a mistake assigning him his reproductive organs, but he did feel as if God was playing a mean joke on him. If God didn’t make mistakes, then what did God think of Chase, if Chase was born attracted to men instead of women? Was that not a mistake? If not, then God knew what he was doing.

Perhaps, then, God was telling him that he was meant to spend the rest of his life alone. Chase supposed that it made sense. After all, he didn’t care much for people and he _did_ enjoy his own company. But even still, he wondered why, if that was God’s plan for him, why he didn’t just make it so that Chase wasn’t attracted to people at all.

Secretly Chase felt lonely. It was true that he enjoyed his own company, but even _he_ could get sick of himself sometimes. And it was narrow-minded to think that there was no one else in the world for Chase.

But a woman. Chase couldn’t imagine being in love with a woman. He could imagine having a woman as a friend and spending the rest of his life with her as a friend, but when he imagined finding love and settling down, and when he imagined romance, he imagined Jason.

Chase jumped when there was a knock at the door. “Chase, you done yet? I have to pee.” It was Jason. _Speak of the devil... Bad choice of words._

“Sorry.” He scrambled for his towel, wrapping it and holding it around his waist as he opened the door inward to reveal an agitated looking Jason. He avoided eye contact, brushing past him for his room. Jason watched him walk stiffly by and he thought, _What’s bothering him now?,_ before walking in and closing the door behind him.

Chase got dressed quickly, pulling a dark purple, long sleeved t-shirt over his head, a brown plaid button up over it, which he left open and a pair of light blue denim jeans. Jason was just leaving the guest room when he opened his door, and he stopped to acknowledge Chase, making eye contact with him from a few feet up the hall.

“I want to show you something.” Chase said.

“What?” Jason faced him fully, digging his hands into the pockets in his jeans.

“Just follow me.” He walked past Jason down the hall and Jason followed behind him, first closing the guest bedroom door.

They left the house and walked across the field to a wall of trees which hid the entrance to the creek. When they reached the mouth of it, they had to cross a path of steep and slippery moss-eaten rocks to the other side. Chase went first, taking his time, wavering from side to side with his arms straight out to keep him balanced and the water crashing into the rocks splashed up high enough to wet his shoes.

On the other side they could _just_ make out the outline of a structure among the branches of a tree a few yards ahead of them, which they walked toward side by side, both in solemn silence. When they neared the house, Jason asked, “A tree house?”

“My dad built it for me years ago. I stopped coming here after—“ he hesitated, “after Derek left.”

“Derek? A friend of yours I’m guessing?”

“He was. Do you remember asking me why Wuthering Heights was my favorite book?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, it used to belong to Derek. It was his favorite book. His mom would read it to him every night, then she passed away and he got really attached to it, but he left it behind when he moved.”

“Oh. But still, I probably wouldn’t read the same book eight times just because it belonged to a friend that moved.”

“I’ll be honest with you, I’ve only _actually_ read it twice. But I’ve read bits and pieces of it from cover to cover over the past few years because it helps me fall asleep. It makes me think of him.” That last sentence was uttered quietly, but Jason heard it and he had to wonder why Chase was less confident in those words.

“Makes you think of him?”

“Keeps me from forgetting about him.”

Derek must have been special to Chase if, after all the time that had passed, he was still reading the same book over and over again to keep the memories of him fresh. Then Jason wondered in what way Derek was special to him, why he was being told this and why it felt more like a confession than a simple conversation.

* * *

“...he left without saying goodbye to anyone. One day he was just gone and no one could figure out how to contact him.” They reached the trunk of the tree that cradled the house and Chase grabbed the rope ladder with both hands, slowing putting weight onto it with one foot to test its strength. It made popping-stretching sounds under the strain, but it felt and appeared to be sturdy, so Chase added his other foot and started to climb, one foot at a time, to the top. He reached up for the handle on the square cut-out of the latch in the floor and pushed it up and inside, climbing into the house once the hatch was pushed in and he had enough room to do so.

At the base of the tree, Jason had just taken the rope with his hands as Chase was climbing inside. He wanted to wait for Chase before climbing after him just in case the rope and wood was not strong enough to hold both of them. To further emphasize the strain put onto the wood planks and the rope holding them in place, a small snap could be heard somewhere in the rope and Jason became squeamish when he looked down and saw himself several feet up. He hurried to the top, grabbing the inside when he was high enough and pulling himself up and into the house.

It was nice, the house, made with a dark wood that now looked quite dusty and eaten up from termites. The inside was blanketed in spider webs. There was a small child’s desk in front of a window that actually had glass in it and a cubby not far to its left where some miscellaneous things were tucked and stored away, all of which looked grayed from the webs that covered them. Then, to the right of the desk, there was something like a bed sitting huddled up in the corner. Old blankets were neatly folded to resemble the appearance of a bed and because of how many of them there must have been, the makeshift bottom was at least six inches thick with another blanket and a fat pillow on top. There were not as many spiderwebs on the covers, but they still looked dusty and grayed out.

“I’m sorry. You must’ve cared about him a lot.” Jason replied to Chase’s previous statement as he was standing and dusting himself off. The roof was not tall, so he had to bend in order to fit. At the tallest point of the roof, the point, he could stand up straight and be left with a few extra inches of room, but the slope was steep.

“I did.” _I loved him._ Chase thought, but those were precious words that he did not want Jason to hear. He would hold them inside and die with it never being known to anyone else.

“So why did you bring me here?”

“I just wanted to show it to you.” Chase walked over, with his back bent, to the cubby in the far left corner. He looked through some of its possessions and blew hard at them, sending a cloud of dust into the air, then he wiped his hand over the top of a box. “Operation. I wonder if it still works.” Chase pulled the game from the cubby and walked back to Jason, taking a seat on the floor and crossing his legs. Jason did the same, sitting across from him.

“We playing?”

Chase lifted the lid off the box, raising his eyes look at Jason directly. “Why not?” Jason shrugged with nonchalance, scooting ever closer as Chase pulled all of the pieces out and started setting the game up.

He wasn’t lying when he said that he’d brought Jason here just because he wanted to show him this place, but that was only a half-truth. The other half of that truth was that Chase simply wanted to be near Jason, craved his presence. Then he’d also wanted to be alone with Jason so that if they wanted to talk about certain _things_ they could, without the prying eyes and ears of his parents.

Chase set the cards up. “You go first.” He said. Jason took a doctor card. The charlie horse. Jason looked for and found the correct location of the piece he would need to retrieve, then grabbed the tweezers and slowly reached into the hole, plucking the piece out with ease. He set it next to him and handed the tweezers to Chase, who took his turn drawing a doctor card while Jason pulled the right amount of paper money from the two stacks.

“I lied when I first got here.” Jason took the tweezers from Chase after he successfully pulled the Adam’s apple out.

“About what?”

“Why I came here. A relative of mine passed away recently and he had a farm that he left for me in his will. I decided to come here to learn how to take care of one.”

Chase looked up and his exterior was calm but the energy he was radiating felt fierce. He paused. “Wait, so you don’t have to leave then.” The hope in his voice was crystal clear and it only made Jason feel worse about coming clean.

“Taking care of a farm isn’t for me. I thought I’d sell it.”

“Why? Your relative obviously expected you to take care of it, why sell it?”

“I just told you. Farming isn’t for me.”

“So you’re scared of a little hard work?” Chase shifted, letting his spine straighten. Jason felt him go stiff and it made him uncomfortable.

“Of course not, there are just other things I want to do with my life. If I take on a farm then I won’t have time to do anything _but_ take care of a farm. I don’t want that.”

“If you were just going to sell it then why the hell did you even bother coming here?”

Jason sighed. “Because I thought maybe I could handle it but working with you and your family just makes it clear to me that I’ll be unable to do anything else. If I sell it then at least I have the money to start a business or something, invest the money into something.”

“You city people have your heads up your asses, I swear to God. If you’ve made up your mind then you should just leave and stop wasting everyone’s time.” Chase got up, heading for the hatch to leave. Jason turned himself around to follow him with his eyes.

“Wait, Chase.” He got up and waited at the hatch for Chase to get down from the ladder, then started climbing down it after him.

By the time he could reach the ground, Chase was hurrying off, almost to the creek. Jason jogged after him, calling for him, “Chase, can you please just stop for a sec?” But Chase didn’t stop, he kept going until he was at the rocks where they’d crossed over, and he spread his arms out as he started to cross them, going slow and careful but still fast, faster than he had when he crossed them coming from the other direction.

“Dammit Chase, slow down.” When he reached the rocks, he stepped carefully onto the first one, bending forward slightly to keep himself balanced and upright, then slowly stepped forward, making his way in careful haste to the other side, where Chase had reached and then started to jog. He wasn’t answering Jason nor slowing down nor so much as looking back. “Why won’t you listen to me?” He called, and Chase kept going, ignored him.

Jason reached the other side and then took off running, putting all of his weight into his upper half to propel himself forward with gusto. Finally, _finally_ , he reached Chase by a hair, grabbing the back of his shirt as tight as he could. The shirt hit his arms and Chase was almost completely stopped, wriggling and shifting aggressively to escape his shirt, but Jason reached him and grabbed his forearms, then he twirled him to face him and did not expect to see him in tears. “Why are you mad at me?” His voice was earnest, a little bit desperate and he pushed his eyebrows up, pleading with his gaze for an explanation.

“Let go of me.” Chase grabbed his hands and dug his nails into Jason’s wrists until he hissed and instinctively let go. Chase used the opportunity to take off running again, hair flying behind him, glasses wet from his tears. Jason took off after him too and they left the wall of tress into the clearing outside them, which was roughly a mile and a half from the Reed family’s house.

The bastard was fast and full of energy. Jason couldn’t keep up, eventually having to stop and bend over with his hands on his knees to catch his breath. He looked up and saw Chase still running, yards and yards away, halfway probably, maybe.

He didn’t understand. He was angry, but why? What was it about telling him about the farm that angered him so much? Was it just because he had not told the truth the first time? Could it really be that simple? Knowing Chase, probably. Chase was hard to understand sometimes, stubborn, hard and hot headed and over-emotional too, all of which Jason was not, which made him all the more difficult to empathize with. If Jason had been told about the farm, he would never have been upset about it. He might have had suggestions, advice, or encouraging things to say, but he couldn’t understand what about that would make someone angry.

Jason felt nuts. He was overthinking this and beating himself up for something he didn’t even understand. All he knew was that it felt like Chase had shut him out again and he didn’t want to be on the other side of that wall, not when his time here was ending soon.

 _Oh_ _._ It suddenly hit him. Chase wasn’t upset about being lied to the first time, he was upset because Jason had a way to stay, didn’t have to leave Chase at all, and instead he chose to let go of the farm, therefore letting go of Chase, knowingly. _He wants me to stay._ Jason felt a tingling sensation run down his face and his arms and legs, a sensation of joy. He realized then just how much of an idiot he’d been.

Chase reciprocated. He liked Jason too. Why had Jason not realized that until now?

He smiled.


	13. Chapter 13

Even in his fifties, Jim, in all his life, had never seen a finer, more beautiful woman than Yolanda. He knew that he loved her the moment he saw her. With her blonde, whipping hair, defiant curls that she often tried to hide with a straightener or a bandanna and the beautiful, crystal blue eyes that, when you looked deep enough into, were like glass covered pools. She had a smile that could knock you on your ass and a laugh that shot out of her like a blaze.

She was absolutely stunning. Sometimes when he had a moment to spare, Jim thought of her in her youth. The laugh lines outside the corners of her mouth had not been nearly as visible back then and the lines slowly forming around the outer corners of her eyes put weight on her eyelids. Her hair was streaked with silver, but you could only see it if you were looking closely. Then her hands, as slender and delicate as they were, had loose skin with thick veins running underneath it, and her skin was darker now, spotted from all of those days in the sun, evidence of a life of hard work.

He was reminded why Chase was so important to him, why _Chase_ was the one that Jim wanted to leave his life’s work to. Chase was just like his mother. He had a brilliant mind and a way about him that defied everything. He was sensitive and kind, knew how to nurture, was hard working, focused, disciplined and those were all things he loved about Yolanda. If there was only one person in the world that could do his life’s work justice, it was Chase.

Sometimes Jim felt as if he wasn’t showing the strength of his love for his family enough. He worked as hard as he could to put a roof over their heads, wanted them to have a comfortable place to sleep and eat and feel free, but that meant that Jim couldn’t be with them as often as he liked, and he sometimes worried about losing them.

Especially Chase, who was just as rebellious as his mother. He thought that if he pushed hard enough, he might be able to keep from losing them, from losing the love of his life and his two beautiful children. If they slipped away, Jim would lose himself.

Yolanda sat on the living room couch with her feet curled up on the cushion. She was drinking a beer and from behind her, in the kitchen, Jim could hear her sniffling. It was after dark, some time after ten and Jim’d had to work late. He walked into the living room and placed his hand on her shoulder, drawing her attention. Yolanda quickly looked up and Jim could see dark, ashy streaks of makeup smudged down her cheeks and tears still in her eyes. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.” He said, and his voice was calm, melancholy. It made her smile.

“You’re not so bad yourself, cowboy.” She sniffed, turning her upper half and reaching around the back of the couch to stroke his cheek. Jim put his palm over her hand and turned his lips into her palm to kiss it. “I wish they wouldn’t keep you out so late. I worry that one day you won’t come home.”

Jim pushed his face into her hand. He was leaning over the couch some. “I will always come back to you, my dear, because wherever you are is home.” Yolanda choked on a cry, smiling still.

“How did everything go?”

“Not so good.” Jim lifted and rounded the couch to sit beside her. Her wrapped his arm around her shoulders on the back of the couch and sat close, a hand on her thigh. “The doctors don’t think I’m respondin’ to the treatment anymore.”

Yolanda’s stomach sunk. Of all the things in the world to say, those were the words that Yolanda had nightmares about. The reality of what he’d said didn’t hit her immediately. All she could was sit there and look at him, suddenly feeling all of her nerves and muscles become dangerously calm. Jim sighed.

“I think it’s about time we told Chase.” Jim said. Yolanda put her face into her palms and wiped the tears and the wet mascara from her face, then sniffed. She nodded.

“He’s going to be so angry.” She huffed, exhausted, mentally defeated.

“He’s entitled. We’ve kept it from ‘em for a long time. Better he knows what t’expect than somethin’ happens one day and he finds out then.”

“The doctors could be wrong. Maybe they just need to change your prescription. I won’t give up Jim.” Yolanda stared at him with fire in her eyes, and God he loved that about her, loved _her_.

Jim pushed some of her hair behind her ear with a smile, leaning in and kissing her on the forehead. “I’ve been on just about every plan. We just can’t afford it anymore.”

Then it hit her, and she collapsed into his chest. Jim wrapped his arms around her small frame and held her tight, as if by holding her he could protect her from everything.

  
  


  
  


Chase would not look at him, would not acknowledge him other than to speak when spoken to, which wasn’t much. Learning that Jason had had a good reason to stay and even a place to go this whole time made Chase feel lied to. He felt as if he’d fallen for a liar, a cheater. How could you make someone feel as if they were cared deeply about and then _choose_ to let them go when you had the perfect opportunity not to?

Jason walked around him on eggshells all day, wondering when and over what Chase would snap. He tried several times to strike up a conversation but Chase was abrupt and cold and he didn’t want to sound abrasive in getting straight to the point, so he left it be for as long as he could stand. His level of endurance reached its end at about ten in the evening, when Jason decided to get it over with. He knocked on Chase’s bedroom door and waited for an answer. To his surprise, Chase answered, “If that’s you Jason go away.”

Jason tried to fight the urge to roll his eyes. “Look Chase, I’m sorry. I want to stay, but I don’t know enough about this life to run a farm. I could try but I would eventually go broke and then I’d have nothing. Me leaving is going to happen one way or another.” He waited for an answer, which never came, and then he dropped his forehead to the door and closed his eyes, assuming that Chase didn’t want to hear anymore.

Chase opened his door as Jason was pulling himself from it to walk away. “I know.” His voice was calm. It wasn’t cold or abrupt, but sincere and he had a look on his face to match it.

“Then why are you mad at me?”

“I’m not. Not anymore.”

“Could’ve fooled _me_.”

“I just want us to keep our distance. You have what, three weeks left? The more I’m around you the more I _want_ to be around you and I don’t want to miss you.” He would already miss Jason, and he was well aware of that, and that was why he didn’t want to become anymore attached to him.

“Guess I’m addicting.” With his smug voice and his smug eyes and his smug grin, he made Chase smile and oh how it warmed his heart to see Chase smile that like.

“You’re everything I’m not.”

“Do tell.” Jason purred, leaning on the wall outside Chase’s door. He stuck a hand in his pocket and looked down at Chase as he was continuing to smile with that look of warmth and familiarity in his eyes.

“You’re social, for one thing. You’re a lot more optimistic than I am and carefree. I have to plan something down to the edges, but you can just roll with the punches. I don’t know how you do that.” He crossed his arms loosely.

“Life’s a lot better when you stop trying to control it.”

“I’m not very good at going with the flow. If I can’t predict it, if I don’t have a way out or a plan or _something_ to hold onto, I feel like I’m going to slip into a hole and never find my way out of it.”

“I like that about you.”

“That I have control issues?”

Jason laughed. “No, I like that you’re disciplined.” He smiled, hoping to make it as warm as the smile Chase was giving him. Chase then stepped out of the way of his doorway, leaning against his door.

“Want to come in?”

He was being invited into Chase’s room? How spectacularly rare. Jason didn’t _dare_ pass up his chance, walking into Chase’s room, and he felt a primal nerve being struck when Chase shut his door behind him before climbing to sit on his bed. He let one of his legs hang over the side.

Chase really should not have been inviting Jason into his room with Jason wanting him the way he did and as fiercely as he did, but because he wanted to savor this moment, Jason pushed down his lusting and chose to sit down on the bed too, right at the end, and he let one of his legs hang over the end.

“You know, I figured you’d be mad at me longer.”

“I mean, I know you can’t really help the farm thing. It isn’t like you can just stay here until you get things going, and you don’t have anywhere else to go, so selling is your only option. I just—I wish you weren’t leaving.”

“You keep telling me you wish I _would_ leave. Which is it?” There was a fondness there, no judgment, no tease, only fondness.

“I wish you wouldn’t.” He said. Chase looked up at him and his hair was falling down in his eyes, thick with volume and hanging puffy around his face. He wasn’t wearing his glasses, probably because he intended to go to bed right about the time that Jason knocked on his door, but Jason didn’t mind. He quite liked the barren look, almost as if he was naked in a way.

“You could come with me back to New York you know.”

“I can’t leave here. My mom and dad need help on the farm. Without you helping it’s barely manageable, but without me they would struggle.”

“You’re going to stay here your whole life and before you know it you’ll have missed out on everything you ever wanted. You’re eighteen. Get out, live, figure out what it is you want.” Chase gazed without word. If Jason knew how much he wanted to jump, to leave, to live and explore—. “I don’t exactly have my own place yet but I doubt my mom would object to you coming to stay until I can move out.”

“Planning our future together are you? Isn’t that my job?”

Jason snorted. He turned himself and laid down on his back with his foot still hanging off the end of the bed and with the other bent, knee pointed at the ceiling. His head was next to Chase’s hip and Chase twisted his body to be able to look at him, deciding he should move if they were going to keep eye contact while talking. He moved higher up on the bed, scooting back against the pillows and laid down, holding his head with his hand and his elbow planted underneath him to support his head’s weight. “Seriously, come with me.”

“You know I can’t.”

Jason sighed, then closed his eyes. “I know.” His head sunk down when Chase shifted and then his face was being tickled. When he looked up, all he could see was Chase’s chin being shadowed by the angle of the light, which could not reach through the barrier of his hair, and then he was kissing him, his head upside down. Chase reached with his hands, let them slide upward, let them dip underneath Jason’s shirt and explored the plains of chest there. He wanted to feel Jason’s skin on his skin, wanted to feel his heart beating into his fingertips.

Jason kissed back, their pace slow and both of them had shut their eyes. He set his hand over Chase’s through his shirt, pushed down on it and thought— _feel my heart_ —as the other hand raised too and brushed through Chase’s golden hair.

He pulled back but didn’t stop, kissing the nape of Jason’s neck, digging his fingertips into his chest, wanting him. Jason wrapped his hand around Chase’s neck and moved, forcing them apart, subsequently bringing their lips together again once he was sitting up and facing him. Chase had to sit up too in order to be level with him, and he grabbed Jason’s shirt, pulled at it and Jason understood. He leaned back to raise his shirt over his head, discarding it off the bed and stealing Chase’s lips once again.

Chase pulled his lips an inch from Jason’s to catch his breath and to compose himself just as Jason started to try and push his shirt up. They couldn’t do this, not here, even though just about all of him was saying to hell with it. Jason stopped when Chase put his hands on his chest and pushed to alert him that he wanted to stop, grabbing either side of Chase’s head—not his neck—and making him look Jason in the eyes. They were both winded and warm and horny.

“Why are you doing this to me?” Jason asked. Chase shut his eyes hard and bumped his forehead to Jason’s. He slid his head and put his mouth in Jason’s shoulder, biting it and hard enough to make Jason wince. Jason slid his hands to Chase’s back when he moved his head down.

“I feel so guilty.” Chase’s voice was raspy, wet, quiet and strained. It was almost as if it physically hurt him to speak. Jason kept his arms around him but he tightened them. “I’m not supposed to be like this.” He cringed at himself and Jason noticed that his voice was shaky all of a sudden. “It’s wrong but I can’t stop it.”

Jason wasn’t exactly sure what Chase was referring to. “What is? I don’t understand.” He pulled away from Chase, grabbing his head again and forcing him to look up. Chase tried to resist but he was finally successfully forced to look up and his eyes were red and he was in tears. Jason felt lost. He didn’t know how to help except to be quiet and listen.

“I’m gay. I’m _fucking_ gay and I can’t be because it’s wrong.” He choked on those words and Jason did not fight when Chase shoved his head down to escape being looked at while he was in tears. He grabbed Jason, trembling and squeezing and Jason grabbed him back, wanting only to protect him.

Jason felt guilty because while he felt awful seeing Chase in such a disastrous state of mind, he was ecstatic to learn that Chase liked _only_ men. And really, he should have guessed because Chase was clueless and apathetic with girls and yet ready to jump his bones over a kiss.

“Listen to me, Chase—“ Jason grabbed him again, made him raise his head. Chase sniffed, a wet and soggy mess but he looked up, calming down when his eyes met Jason’s. “I can’t say I believe in God but I know what the Bible says and if God is any of those things, he wouldn’t hate you for this. He _made_ you this way. So either the God you believe in isn’t real or someone’s got it all wrong.”

Chase squeezed his eyes and tears rolled down his cheeks. He opened them again and this time was much more calm. “I never wanted this. I tried to like girls but I never did. Not that way, anyway.”

“So you don’t like girls. What’s the big deal?” Jason smiled at him. Chase smiled and it was beautiful.

Truthfully, while Chase _did_ feel guilty for being gay, that wasn’t what bothered him so much. What bothered him was knowing that his parents had separate beliefs and that telling them could result in losing their respect and love. He wanted so much to fit into their ideas of him, wanted so much to snap his fingers and be reborn as a heterosexual man, but no matter how much he wished for it, he was stuck with the reality of being gay, stuck with the reality of _not_ fitting into his parents’ ideas of him and stuck in the closet.

Chase felt calm inside, quiet. Even though he believed in some part of his mind that homosexuality was a sin, Jason’s acceptance of him, without hesitation, was a comfort to him. He fell against Jason’s chest, now exhausted. “Sleep with me.” He whispered.

“Okay.”


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please forgive me if there are any mistakes in this chapter. I hovered over it for hours perfecting it and trying to catch any mistakes, but I'm quite exhausted, so my eyes may not have been very reliable.

Chase woke in a cocoon of warmth and with heavy arms tangled around him. There was a steady breath on the back of his neck and when he turned to look over his shoulder he saw Jason there, sleeping peacefully. Chase rolled over so that he could face him.

The orange-y glow from outside his window soaked the room in a fire-like warmth. The features of Jason’s face, which were already warm and welcoming, were graced by golden shadows. Chase thought he was the finest man—the finest human—he’d ever laid eyes on. He reached from under the blanket covering them both up to Jason’s face, and he stroked the backs of his fingers along the smooth surface of his cheek.

After a moment, Jason shifted his face into his pillow and his eyebrows furrowed down. He slowly opened his eyes, looking down, then his eyelashes raised when his gaze did and suddenly he was looking intently and wide-eyed at Chase, as if he had not just been asleep seconds ago. Jason smiled at him. “Hey.” He said, voice ridden with sleep.

“Hey.” Chase smiled back at him, tucking his hand under his chin.

“How long you been awake?”

“Just a few minutes.” Chase worried he might have looked silly staring at Jason and touching his face while he slept.

“Mm.” Jason rolled onto his back to stretch, every muscle going taut. After his stretch, he moved to Chase, taking his neck and bringing their lips together fervently and without even bothering to ask. Chase was not deterred from this and in fact returned the kiss as he rolled onto his back to encourage Jason on top of him. Jason only halfway obliged, making sure that there was enough weight to press him into the bed but not so much that he was trapped there.

Jason used his tongue and his lips and the heat of his mouth to neutralize Chase. He kissed his mouth, his neck, his chin, his jaw and everywhere that made Chase so much as vaguely shift in his spot, then pushed his hand under the blanket to rest it on his navel. Not too low, just meant to be a tease, and Chase wasn’t objecting to any of it, which was already surprising, but then he reached for Jason’s hand under the blanket and pushed it further down.

Jason abruptly stopped. He pulled back and opened his eyes to find Chase’s cheeks pink and his pupils very dilated, which brought the smuggest grin to his face and Chase _hated_ it. “Horny much?” He teased. Chase sat up with a huff, shoving Jason’s hand out of his lap and therefore off of his crotch.

“And _y_ _ou’re not?_ It’s been a while.” Chase was embarrassed with himself for so blatantly stating the obvious. He dared not look in Jason’s direction, just in case he was giving him a smug look because Chase couldn’t guarantee rational behavior in response if he was.

A vicious look planted itself right in the depths of Jason’s eyes. It was a look of hunger, of want, passion, desperation. Chase was the target of those instincts and _damn_ if he didn’t want to ravish him in his horny state...but he instead refused and composed himself without so much as a flinch to foreshadow the turmoil in his mind. Jason put on a grin, “Is that an invitation?”

Going quite impossibly red in the face, Chase darted his eyes and fixed them on Jason with incredulity and it was so sudden and honest that Jason cracked a hearty laugh at him. That only made Chase feel more embarrassed over the remark.

“You didn’t say no. I’m going to assume it was.” He was smug, so smug, and Chase wanted to slap that grin right off his face. It only embarrassed him because it was true and that was something that Chase would never acknowledge.

Jason stood on his knees and walked on them to Chase’s backside, where he slithered his arms over Chase’s shoulders, crossed them like he was hugging himself and ducked his head so that his mouth was almost on the cartilage of his ear. Chase couldn’t help but gently pull away from it because that warmth from Jason’s mouth—that hot _mouth_ —made that whole side of his body tingle.

Chase felt an impulse rise and he was suddenly analyzing his room for any and all reasons to keep going, to let Jason do whatever the hell he wanted to him. The clock on his bedside table said it was after seven. Yolanda would be making breakfast—in fact, he could vaguely smell it coming from the crevices in his door—and there was no noise to drown out any sort of sounds they would make.

“Do you need a little incentive?” Jason brought his mouth right under his lobe, moisture from his breath rising on top of his flesh and Chase was so desperately hard and horny and _speechless_ that all he could do was part his lips and lean into the hot, hard body against his back. Then Jason spread and locked his fingers, pushing them into the underside of Chase’s jaw so that his head would be forced back onto Jason’s shoulder. He used his other hand to grab onto his hip, where his fingers dared to slide under the waistband of Chase’s pajama pants and ghost over the low of his pelvis.

Chase made a sound, a quiet, choked, needy sound. His back arched away from Jason and a half-breath came out of his parted lips in a hurry. “St—stop. Jason—“ He finally managed to spit out a stretch of broken syllables.

“If you want me to stop, push me away.” He wasn’t going to let Chase dictate sex, not this time because _yes_ , he was horny and _yes_ , it had been a while. Too damn long if Jason had any say about it. Chase didn’t push him away. Jason felt his arms tense up and for a moment he was sure Chase was going to push him away, but all he did was ball his hands into fists and rotate his wrists so hard that they were popping.

“Dammit Jason—“ Chase was so out of control. He wanted to stop this for fear of being caught by Yolanda, who was just fifteen steps or so down the hall but those warm, electric touches to his skin were like a drug to him, to his stimulated body. Every intention, every slight impulse, every tiny thought of putting a stop to this was outweighed by Jason’s breath or the heat of his fingers or the way he was so close to touching him that it was infuriating and every time Chase was weak.

“I’d like to fuck you now, if you don’t mind.” His voice was thick with lust and impatience. Jason held onto Chase’s hips while pushing against him and his mouth settled in the crook of his neck, just about on his shoulder, where dark spots were sucked into his skin, marks he left as proof that he’d touched this person’s body, devoured him in every spiritual and intimate and mental way possible.

And really, what was the worst that could happen if Yolanda caught them? Would it really be that big of a deal? The more Jason aroused him, the farther away logic and rational thinking drifted, until Chase wordlessly gave permission by reaching down to do what Jason wouldn’t do. Jason pushed him down to his chest the moment Chase started, pulled his pajama pants down, then went for the belt around his own waist.

Chase bit down into his fist to stifle the sounds in his chest while still stroking himself with the other hand and Jason bucked into him too fast and too hard, though Chase admittedly felt intense sparks of bliss from the hurt.

It was desperate, impatient and altogether full of the things that neither of them had the courage to express otherwise; full of love.

  
  


  
  


They waited until after sundown to approach him. Chase was sitting up on his bed with his glasses on and a book open in his lap. It was the same old book he was always reading: Wuthering Heights. He was just about done reading it for the eighth time, but then Chase heard a knock at his door. “Chase? Are you awake?” It was Yolanda with a reluctant voice. A heavy voice, the tired voice of someone who’d spent too much time crying.

“Yeah, I’m awake.” Chase was looking at the door and then at Yolanda as she eased into his room. Jim was behind her, looking oddly calm. The man was usually fierce, even in a good mood, but he looked tired too and Chase felt a heaviness following them into his room. “Is everything okay?”

“Not quite. Your father and I would like to talk to you for a minute. It’s important.”

Chase closed his book, not bothering to mark his place since he’d virtually memorized the book anyway. But he channeled his posture toward them with openness. Yolanda took a seat at the end of the bed and Jim sat down on the couch-bed against the far wall. He laced his fingers on both hands together and sat crouched over.

“So…” Yolanda began with distant eyes. She wasn’t looking at anyone, just the floor. “There have been some things we haven’t told you. I know it always frustrated you when your father insisted on you not going to college to learn how to take care of the farm, but he’s been so adamant about it for a reason.” Yolanda’s voice quivered near the end of her sentence, but she cleared her throat and was able to straighten it out.

Chase felt the heaviness grow, felt a looming presence of which did not feel welcoming and his gut was telling him to be prepared, for this would not be good news.

“We were trying to be optimistic that things would turn out alright, but it isn’t looking like they will be. Chase, your father has Cancer.” The room came to an abrupt halt. The pulsing of the energy that thrummed all around them stilled and even the silence was quiet. Jim and Yolanda waited for a reaction, waited for Chase to become angry, but he didn’t. Instead, he furrowed his eyebrows and looked at them in confusion.

“What?” Chase spoke with a calm voice, a voice belonging to someone who was not receiving bad news. But, in fact, he was.

“He’s been going to Chemotherapy sessions for the past two years, but they aren’t working anymore.” Yolanda went silent again, waiting, holding her breath. Chase still didn’t understand. “The Cancer won. Your father is _dying_.”

That word seemed to bestow a frightful power, because Chase was nearly knocked back from the force of this revelation. At first, he wasn’t quite sure how to respond, but the heaviness that followed Jim and Yolanda into the room attached itself to Chase and bubbled up inside him like a thick poison. He crawled out of bed and stood in front of his door, body halfway facing them both. “What? No, _no_.” The most unsettling thing about him was his composure. They both knew he was upset, knew he was fitting the information together and processing it and they waited for the timer to expire.

“I’m so sorry.” Yolanda’s eyes watered and her voice trembled. Her son was going to lose his father. How could anyone cope with such a truth?

“You—“ Chase inhaled quickly, lungs pausing, then smiled, then frowned, then expressed anger on his face. “You kept this from me. Why?” They waited for all of that anger to come unhinged.

“We were hoping that the Chemo would cure it. Neither one of us wanted to put more burdens on your shoulders.” Yolanda was still trying to compose herself, but her eyes were still glossy and thick with moisture and her throat still ached with the need to cry.

“You couldn’t have let _me_ figure those things out? When were you guys going to tell me?”

“If the Chemo worked, we weren’t.”

“So you both just decided for me then. Like you decided how I was going to spend the rest of my life. Does _my_ opinion just not matter to you?” Chase was still holding himself together.

“Son, we did it t’protect you.” Jim finally spoke. Chase went quiet and looked at him. “You had school, then graduation an’ then ya had the farm to look after. I didn’t want you worryin’ about me too.”

Chase was starting to shake. He felt so many things all at once that he could identify none of them. His face contorted and he laughed, but he laughed with hysterics.

“If you wanna be angry at someone, be angry at me. I’m the one who wanted to keep it quiet.”

“You expect me to just take over this farm like it’s my duty without even bothering to ask me what _I_ want, and I thought I was going to be able to live my life for a few years before I had to settle down and take your place, and now you’re telling me I’m not even going to get that.”

“ _Chase_.” Yolanda said his name during an inhale and with absolute displeasure in her tone. “Your father is dying and _that’s_ what you’re worried about?” It was as if she’d just seen the first flying pig.

Chase didn’t reply to her. He swung open his door and rushed out of it like a strong breeze, while Yolanda and Jim both looked at each other with nothing to say. They were speechless. Yolanda more than Jim because her son had just declared that he was more upset over the fact that he would inherit the responsibility of the farm than he was over the fact that his father was dying.

Jason too was appalled. He hadn’t meant to eavesdrop but he’d overheard the part about Jim dying on his way out of the bathroom and felt as if that burden was now his own. Jim was stern and strict and could be overly harsh sometimes, but the man had a way about him that Jason had enormous respect for.

Chase was disrespectful and selfish, inconsiderate and blind to his own mistakes. Jason was not oblivious to his flaws but he’d allowed Chase’s better traits to outweigh his less-than-better ones. But overhearing the way Chase reacted to the troubling news of his dying father was sickening. Jason knew what it was like to lose a father, and he’d barely even _known_ his father. Chase was lucky. Lucky and all he could do was complain about things not going his way.

Jason had been leaning against the guest room door, listening, and Chase hadn’t even glanced his way when he stormed down the hall. Jason resolved himself to go back inside his room and sleep.


	15. Chapter 15

The wind rippled past him like a strong ocean current, invisible, powerful, tranquil, and his long golden hair, left down and mussed up by the grass, flew like a cape behind him, sweeping off of his shoulders. Chase stood at the top of the cliff where the pasture abruptly cut into spears and jagged, steep lumps of earth, and his eyes were closed. He could smell the meadow flowers in the breeze, feel the silent and the still pulse of the ground under his feet, like a beating heart.

Chase had not come home after leaving. When he left, he’d brought Applebee to his sacred place, where he’d slept and was awoken by a brilliant sun. He knew that Jim and Yolanda would come looking for him soon, but he didn’t want to be found, not yet, so he got back onto Applebee and took her riding.

Back on the farm, the family was only just rising. After the events of the night, Yolanda and Jim had both chosen to sleep in. Jason was almost never awake of his own accord, so he was asleep too. It wasn’t until Josee went thumping her heels through the house that Yolanda was stirred awake. She climbed onto her mother’s bed and then on top of Yolanda with eager limbs and nudged her. “Mommy it’s time to get up.”

“Mm, what—“ Yolanda cracked her eyes open and peeked at Josee hovering above her, then raised her arms to gently caress Josee’s small arms. “Oh, good morning sweetheart.” She flapped her arm into Jim next to her and he grumbled before shifting to look at her with groggy eyes.

“What, what—“

“What time is it?” Yolanda yawned. Jim reached for the digital clock next to the bed and grabbed it with the whole of his hand.

“After nine.”

“See? It’s late so you have to get up.” Josee bounced on all fours, pointy little bones stabbing Yolanda in the gut. She grunted.

“Okay okay, we’re getting up. Get down, you’re hurting me.”

“I’m sorry.” Josee climbed backward, back down to the floor. She took off out of their bedroom and Yolanda brought the palm of her hand down over her face with a huff that said ‘I-don’t-wanna-get-up-yet’.

“Her majesty calls.” Said Yolanda. Her voice dripped with sarcasm and Jim chuckled at her. He leaned into her and kissed her cheek.

“Time t’get up anyway I reckon. Make them sausages you make.” Jim kissed her cheek again, but his kiss lingered and multiplied and Yolanda was giggling when his kisses reached her neck. She scurried away from him, nearly falling out of bed in a fit of laughter.

“Okay okay—“ She laughed. Only a thin, white, silk gown hung over her shoulders, with lace lining the straight-neck of it. Her hair was golden and rippled and a little static-y from sleep. She brushed it over her shoulders to fall down her back and went to get a change of clothes from the dresser sitting at the tail end of the bed, then peeled the gown over her head so she could put the change of clothes on.

Underneath her gown was nothing. Jim sat half-way up on one of his elbows, admiring her. He whistled at her, which got the gown thrown at his face. “I’ll never get too old t’whistle at you.”

“I certainly wish you would.” She gave him her half-lidded, flirty eyes and smiled at him.

“Hey now.” Jim threw his cover off and got out of bed. “Lookin’ like somebody needs a good dunk in the barrel.” Yolanda stuck up her index finger at him as he was slowly approaching her.

“No, absolutely not. Don’t you even thiiiiink—!” She was scooped up into Jim’s arms, now wearing a pair of yellow, lace-rimmed panties and a half buttoned yellow, brown and blue flannel top. He threw her over his shoulder like a doll and walked out of the room carrying her. “Jim you put me down, don’t you dare!” Jim was cackling at her. He took her outside kicking and screaming.

“It’ll wake ya up doll.” Jim was laughing at her.

“James Carson Reed, I swear on my mother’s name I will-!” Yolanda was cut off when Jim plucked her from his shoulder and dunked her feet first into a cold, metal barrel filled with rain water. He pushed her by the head to make sure she went all the way under, water lopping over the edges, and when she popped back out she was screeching from the cold as if she had the world’s worst brain-freeze and spitting the water from her mouth. “Ohhhhhhh you’re _so_ getting it!” She chattered at him with cold teeth. Jim was cackling at her, out of breath and rosy-cheeked.

Jason came hurtling half-asleep and with spiky bed hair out onto the porch. He was shirtless, wearing sweatpants and squinting at the sudden onset of sunlight burning his corneas. “What’s wrong—“

Jim and Yolanda didn’t notice him until they heard his voice. Jim turned around, smiling at him, though quickly he wiped the look off of his face and cleared his throat. Yolanda grabbed the edges of the barrel. “Get me outta here.” Jim picked her up at her sides and raised her out of the barrel. She was drenched in water and freezing to a point that her nipples were pressing into the cotton on her chest. “Just a bit of fun, that’s all. Is Chase up yet?”

“No. I’ll go wake him.” Jason went back inside, then Jim and Yolanda looked at each other and smiled. She started shaking her head like a dog, good and hard, so her wet hair would whack him in the chest and spray water at him.

“Ya ‘wake, aren’t ya?” Jim asked with a grin, a smug one and he used a hand to block her hair. She stopped and looked up, shoving him in the breast.

“Yeah. Could’ve done without the cold shower though.”

They got back onto the porch when Jason popped his head out again. “Hey, Chase isn’t in his room.”Yolanda and Jim, both smiling at each other like a couple of love birds, stopped and looked at Jason with sudden concern.

“Are you sure?” Yolanda grabbed her hair and squeezed the water out of it.

“ _Pretty sure_.” Jason rubbed his nose with the knuckle of his index.

“He must not’a come back last night. Give ‘em a while. He’s probably still thinkin’ about everything.” Jim realized that it was not a common occurrence for Chase to be out through the night, but he also knew that there were few threats where they lived, so he wasn’t too terribly worried about him. Chase would be back by dinner time to eat.

“I bet he’s at the tree house.” Yolanda said. She shook the excess water from her hands and ushered Jason inside as she followed him in, and Jim followed her.

  
  


  
  


Chase had not returned by dinner. Jim, Yolanda, Jason and Josee sat at the table quietly, none having eaten in the hopes that Chase would have returned to join them. A downpour was raging outside, along with thunder and flashes of lightening through the curtains, and Jim sat with serious eyes. He was the one most worried out of them all, even though he was the least obvious about it.

Yolanda, “Maybe we should go look for him.” She and Jim met eyes. His hands were together over his mouth and a look of worry on his face. One wouldn’t know it to look at him, but his usually stoic appearance was not as plain as it appeared to be. His eyebrows were furrowed and the corners of his mouth were pointing down. Chase had not come home, had been gone nearly a full day, and it was Jim’s fault.

“Knew I shoulda waited.” He rubbed at his temples briefly before standing up. “I’ll take the truck, hun, you, Jason n’ Josee take the Toyota.”

Yolanda shook her head, standing up. “I don’t think so mister, you’ll get yourself sick going outside.” She approached him and only because it was Yolanda, he listened to her and stopped. “Jason and I’ll go look, you stay here with Jos.” She reached up to place a kiss on his cheek.

Jim felt helpless. His son was missing in the dark in the middle of the rain and he couldn’t go outside if he wanted to avoid getting ill. If Josee wasn’t present, he would have hit something.

  
  


  
  


No matter where he turned, he found himself face to face with unchanging surroundings, with trees and grass that all looked the same. His only light came from the lightening of the storm and he was soaked to the bone with rain. Applebee was tired and wet too and her shoes were probably full of dirt by now.

Where had he gone? Which way had he come? Chase took off with Applebee only to find himself lost in a neck of the woods he didn’t recognize, and as powerful as his scream was, the storm swallowed it whole so that nothing could penetrate it. Night had fallen before he’d managed to find his way out of the woods and he was lost and cold and wet and his chest burned. He coughed, a barreling sound that pierced from his lungs and made his throat feel raw.

The water hitting his glasses made it difficult to see, but without them he was unable to see at all. Rain poured down his face, soaked through his hair and clothes and his skin felt fat and swollen from it. He was cold, so terribly cold and he didn’t know where he was. He hoped, now, that his parents were searching for him, hoped that they’d find him and bring him home.

Pangs of guilt flooded him. He’d made them all worry and he’d only meant to be gone for a few more hours. Yolanda was probably terrified and Jim— _Shit. The cancer_ _._ Chase thought. His father had a compromised immune system, what if he was out looking for him in this weather? If he was, it would be Chase’s fault. If his father got sick and died because of it—

Chase stopped on Applebee, hunching over to put his face into his soaked hands. As if he was only just being made aware of it, everything sunk in. _He’s dying. My dad is dying._ And suddenly Chase’s chest ached and he felt so much guilt and shame over what he’d said that he swore he could literally feel it. “How could I have said that to him?” He grieved. _How could I have said those things to him?_ Chase wanted to go home. He wanted this to all be over.

Ahead of him he could see lights, but they were blurred. His head felt heavy, tight, and something hurt. His shivering bones suddenly came to a halt and the world felt cloudy somehow. A voice penetrated the downpour from the same direction of the lights but it was warped and strange. He felt very weak all of the sudden and before he could answer the voice, he fainted.

  
  


  
  


“Look!” Jason pointed and when Yolanda looked, they both heard a loud nay coming toward them, accompanied by a pounding set of hooves that, when reached by the flashlight he was holding, belonged to Applebee. Yolanda pressed her foot hard into the break pedal and parked the truck. Both of them got out of the truck but when they reached Applebee—

“He’s not here, where is he? Where is he Applebee?” Yolanda tried to calm her down, grabbing her head and looking her in the eyes with shushes meant to soothe her. Jason looked beyond the horse into the fading mist that was rain, but he saw nothing but trees and darkness. Without a word, Jason took off in the direction that Applebee had come, cupping his hands around his mouth and he screamed out into the storm, “Chase!”

“Chase! Where are you!” Jason called again, shining his flashlight. The beam only seemed to hit rain and nothing else. He was soaked, could barely hear himself think due to the loudness of the storm. Then, behind him, Yolanda was calling for him too. She whizzed past him on Applebee’s back with her flashlight out and Jason took off running as soon as she passed him.

He had to be nearby. Applebee had heard them, had run right toward them. Unless that was a coincidence—and Jason highly doubted it—she had heard them and come to find them.

“Chase!” Jason’s heart was beating wild in his chest and even in the rain he was hot. Chase was missing, he was missing and that wasn’t like him. If he wasn’t with Applebee then something must have happened to him and Jason felt nauseous at the thought of it. _Please, where are you?_ Jason was desperate. He was sure that he’d never loved someone enough to barge out into an ugly storm to find and in this case, he had no regard for himself. As long as Chase was safe, Jason felt he could live with anything else that happened.

Jason could see a lump in the grass several feet ahead. His heart fluttered anxiously in the hope it was Chase. He took off toward it, skidding in the loose soil and mud up to him and he grabbed his arm, rolled him onto his back and saw that it _was_ Chase. “Chase? Chase, hey,” he tapped his cheek, “wake up.” There was rain pooled in the inner corners of his eyes and his skin was wrinkled and pale. “Fuck—“ He whispered, lifting his weight with a grunt, and pulled Chase over his shoulders. “Over here!” He yelled out for Yolanda. She was close enough to hear him and came running on Applebee to him, nearly leaping off of her when she saw Chase on his back.

“My baby—“ Her eyes wept, though her tears were stolen by the rain that slid down her facial features. She ran to Jason and cupped Chase’s face, trying to see him, but he was unconscious and warm. “Get him to the truck.” With a sniff, Yolanda took the reins again and got back onto Applebee. She led the way to the truck and once they were there, Jason got him into the back seat, holding Chase’s head in his lap on the driver’s side.

  
  


  
  


When they got back to the farm, Yolanda guided Applebee into the stables while Jason carried Chase into the house. Jim stood up, startled when he heard the door suddenly open and rushed to him as soon as he saw Chase on his back and the hurry in Jason’s pace. “Chase—“ He said.

“He’s breathing, but he’s really warm.” Jason carried him to his room and laid him down on the bed, removed his glasses and pulled on his arms while holding him up and then started to remove his wet clothes. Yolanda came in trembling and wet, digging through his dresser for something dry to wear.

“Jim, go get him some blankets please.” Jim nodded, leaving the room hurriedly.

“What’s wrong with Chase mommy?” Josee, curious about why everyone looked so frightened, stood just inside Chase’s door. “Is he okay?”

“No baby, Chase isn’t okay. Can you get him a towel for his hair please?” Josee nodded, determination on her face, and she ran out of the room to grab a towel from the guest bathroom.

Jason stripped him of his shirt and pajama pants, then grabbed his underwear. Yolanda briefly glanced at him, but made no comments. Jason tossed the wet clothes into a pile on the floor and that was about when Josee came back in with the towel, which Yolanda grabbed. She raised Chase’s head and wrapped it up with the towel, gently drying his hair.

After his hair was semi-dry, Yolanda used the towel to pat him the rest of the way down and Jason unfolded the shirt she pulled from his dresser to pull down over his head when she was done, and she took the pile of blankets that Jim brought in, already unfolding the one on the top. Once Chase had on a shirt and a dry pair of boxers, Yolanda shooed Jason out of the way to lay the blankets over Chase.

  
  


  
  


The rain persisted. By midnight, Jason was still awake and sitting outside on the porch swing. His cheeks were warm and tight where he’d been crying and he’d air-dried since they’d found Chase and brought him home.

He was safe. Chase was safe, but Jason was still shaken. He’d realized how easy it was to lose someone, and how unexpected that loss could be. He’d realized the sort of pain losing a loved one could bring him and had only ever experienced that pain once, when his biological parents died. It had been so long ago though that Jason hardly remembered it, but feeling as though this night could have been Chase’s last rattled those old and forgotten emotions loose.

The rain, although it was still falling, was much less vicious than it was earlier in the night. Jason felt numb to the sound of it, felt hollow. He was looking at the rain distantly and tired when Yolanda walked out onto the porch with a cup of something hot enough to emit steam cupped in her hands. She stopped in front of Jason and when he looked up at her, said, “Mind if I join you?”

Jason cleared his throat, shifting as if trying to cover up the raw feelings he’d just been exposing. “That’s fine.” He scooted over to give her room and she sat down, handing that steaming cup to him, which drew his attention to her. “I thought you might like some tea.” She said.

Chase had offered him tea once and Jason had declined, but he felt like declining would be rude, so he reached for the handle on the mug and took it with a sniff. “Thanks.”

Yolanda took in a deep breath and let it out gradually while she looked straight ahead at the rain. She was wearing a thin white shawl and hugging it to herself. “Life is a peculiar thing.” She said. Jason turned to her, letting the steam from the tea warm up face. “You can have everything one day and lose it all the next.”

“You sound like you’re speaking from experience.”

“I am.” She looked at Jason, meeting his eyes. “You don’t know how important someone is to you until you lose them.” Her eyes were kind, but they were sad. Jason felt bad for her, for her future loss, and he was amazed at how beautifully she smiled and how heartily she laughed, even knowing that her husband was going to die.

“I’m sorry.” His voice cracked. Yolanda only reached out and gently tucked some of his hair back, a gesture that he could only see her doing for Chase or Josee.

“Life is too short not to love fully.” Then she pulled him in and kissed his forehead, which completely puzzled him. He watched her get up and go back to the door, then stop as she opened the screen. “Goodnight.” Then, with a smile, she walked inside and closed both doors.


	16. Chapter 16

For someone who’d grown up living in the city all his life, it was no surprise that Jason’s first impression of Blake was nothing short of; _Yikes, someone call_ _Dolly_ _, she wants her_ _hillbilly_ _back._ Though, his impression of the man was not entirely negative. Blake had a cool, quiet nature about him. The way he smiled was fond and when he spoke, he made use of every word—he didn’t speak just to fill in the silence.

Blake was a close friend to the man who’d previously owned the farm which Jason was inheriting. When the Reeds needed an extra pair of hands to help on the farm, Blake had suggested Jason. They reached out to him and helped pay for his travel expenses only with the agreement that Jason would work off those expenses on the farm.

It was a Saturday afternoon. Jason waited for Blake at the airport. When he arrived, Jason put a modest sized suitcase in the back of the truck before climbing in and buckling himself in. “What kinda music do ya listen to?” Blake said while pressing buttons on his radio. Different songs—all of which sounded the same to Jason—filtered in and out as Blake searched for a song, ready to find something Jason was open to listening to.

He gave Blake a shrug. “Doesn’t really matter to me. What d’you usually listen to?”

“Well son ya surely know based on what ya already heard, but I’m guessin’ you’re not about the same kinda music.” He was so severe, so commanding, and yet also so very kind and respectful. Jason was familiar with how people could be rude and respectful all in one sentence, but Blake set a new record. He shrugged a second time.

“Well, suit yourself.” Blake stopped on something slow and exaggerated. It was interesting to Jason, that kind of music, because it was drastically different from what he was used to in New York. The music he listened to was usually upbeat and fast, altered in some way and repetitive. This, however, was more peaceful. Yes, even Jason could find this music calming.

The drive there was the shortest and least nerve wracking part of his trip. The flight had been noisy due to the crying infant a few rows over and the bratty kids that refused to listen to their parents not far away from the infant. Thank goodness it had only been a short flight.

When they arrived, they took to a long gravel drive-way up to the house. Jason saw a boy turn around and look from on top of some old truck sitting in the grass, then start running toward the house. By the time he reached it, they were pulling up to a gentle looking woman with a young child beside her, hair as white as cotton. She cupped her hands over her eyes and then, once they were parked, Blake got out. Jason stayed in the cool air, watching from a distance, listening to their voices.

One of them stood out, the boy. Jason couldn’t exactly say a man having long hair was unusual, but it was hard to tear his eyes away from him. In the wind, strands of his hair, enough so that it was visible from where he was sitting, were flying apart from the rest of his hair and it was golden underneath the sun. And what drew his attention most was the giant, round pair of glasses sitting on the bridge of his nose, having no business being that large and obnoxious. Somehow, though, Jason thought he looked quite nice with them on. If there was only one person in the world who could make ancient glasses like that look good, it was that boy.

“Well come on then, don’t be shy.” Blake turned around and looked at him through the glass. That was his cue. He clicked the handle and stepped down from the passenger’s side, then walked around the front of the truck once his door was shut.

They stood a few feet apart as strangers and Jason didn’t even know his name, but something invisible stretched between them, like a silk cloth dazzling under the brilliant light overhead. That feeling was faint and Jason interpreted it as a feeling of familiarity.

He was so sizzling hot, lethal, stare-through-you, like a viper. Jason wasn’t intimidated by him in the least, equating that aggression and dominance in him to the hilarity of a Chihuahua’s too-big-for-its-britches personality. It was kind of cute.

Things between them got awkward quickly. Jason felt an impulsive attraction to Chase that he’d never felt before—not for another man at least—and had felt it not long after meeting him. There was a fire in Chase that lit up some dark and desolate part of him that had previously been unbeknownst to him.

It was for that reason Jason was afraid to lose him.

Chase had been bedridden for, now, a week with pneumonia. His fever was consistent, as were the chills, lack of appetite, cough and cold sweats. Jason spent some of those nights hovering over him with worry and would re-wet the rag rolled up on his forehead as he needed to, just to watch him sleep, just to listen for his breathing, just to be near him.

Only a week remained. Seven days, and Jason thought to himself: _How am I ever going to leave you?_ In a week he would leave, in a week he would say goodbye, in a week he would never see Chase again. That was the way things had to be. That was the path laid out for them; they were meant to learn from each other, to learn how to love and let go. It was a wild, temporary love and Jason was grateful to have experienced it, to have felt a love for someone so powerful.

And Chase had a good point when he said they could never really be together. In love and blind, Jason wanted to avoid accepting that logic, that being that they were _nothing_ alike. Chase was bound to structure while Jason lived as a free spirit being carried through the wind. He followed the natural ebb and flow of the universe, collecting experiences and knowledge, but Chase was grounded and unmovable and shared very few of his interests. This summer held the recipe for a very steamy romance between the two of them, and that was beautiful, but after stripping away the beauty and the glamour of the relationship, could they really maintain a healthy relationship without the immaculacy?

Chase knew such things very early on. Jason was an indefinitely unraveling sphere of lefts and rights and last minute decisions and sure-why-nots. Chase craved control, something sturdy and predictable, all of which Jason was not. He was obligated to stay and obligated to inherit the farm after his father’s death and obligated to preserve the foundation which his home was built upon and someone as flighty as Jason could never quite understand what it was like to stay still.

  
  


  
  


He stirred and woke to the sensation of fingers spreading like a spider around his scalp. It soothed him. “Mm, that’s nice.” He mumbled, then raised his head, looking right at Chase, who was sitting up in his bed. Jason realized that he’d been laying his head in Chase’s lap. “Hey.” He rumbled. 

“Hey.” Chase replied, pulling his hand away from Jason’s head. Jason made a displeased sound and reached for his hand, setting it back on his head, then shoved his face into Chase’s thighs. A giggle-like sound, mixed with exhaustion, erupted quietly from the center of Chase’s chest and he started to massage again. “You’re like a cat.”

“ _Me_?” Jason abruptly raised his head. “I think you mean you. Always moody and rejecting attention unless you’re in the mood for it.” Chase scoffed.

“You have a point but I’m still offended.” Chase looked sweaty, hair damp and oily looking and in the orange glow of the lamp next to his bed were little shining spots bouncing off of the sweat dotting his face and chest. His eyes were sunken and dark and tired but he looked unusually sweet and open, a look Jason was very fond of. He wanted to take advantage of it, so he got up from the chair he was in and swung a leg over Chase, then got on top of him so that he was straddling his hips. Chase was still sitting up and then looking up too when Jason was seated on his waist (and halfway on his knees). The corners of his lips were just vaguely raised, giving off the impression that he was in a good mood.

Jason pushed his fingers over Chase’s ears, spreading them open a little bit, and grabbed the sides of his head. The gliding of his fingers pushed Chase's hair back and he was too weak and tired to fight having his head pulled back with it, so he gave in, tilting his head back and closed his eyes. His lips parted and he breathed out. “Feels like your fever’s gone.” Jason said.

“Uh huh.”

Jason chuckled. “Feels good doesn’t it?”

“Uh huh.”

Jason chuckled again. “You gonna go back to sleep now?”

“Uh huh.” Chase raised one hand from behind his back and placed it over Jason’s wrist. He slowly reclined until he was laying on his back. Jason slid off of him and laid next to him, then faced him. Chase faced him too after a moment and once they were both facing each other they locked eyes and fell silent.

Chase pulled in the arm under him and set his palm between his cheek and the pillow. Jason bent his elbow upward and used his arm as a pillow to support his head. “What will you do once you go back?” Chase asked.

“Do? What do you mean?”

“Don’t you have any plans? Career choices, education, finding a place to live...any lovers waiting for you to come back?”

Jason reached out with the arm not tucked underneath him and gently stroked Chase’s cheek. The persistence in his gaze was not altered by his touch. “I’ll figure all of that out when I get there. And no,” he swept the pad of his thumb across Chase’s lips. “no one’s waiting for me to come back.” He wanted to say it, wanted to scream it, wanted to climb the tallest mountain in the world and shout it, but...what would be the use?

“You’ll stay in touch won’t you?”

“How do you suppose we’ll keep in touch that far apart?”

“We could call, or we could write to each other.”

“I don’t have a phone.”

“Do either of your parents have one?”

“Yes, but I don’t know their numbers.”

“Well _we_ have a phone. I can write the number down, and I can give you our address if you want to write to me.”

“Chase—“ Jason removed his hand and he rolled onto his back, sticking his knuckles into both eyes, exasperated. This was not the time to be having this conversation. Then again, they had few opportunities left to have it at all, and now was as good a time as any. Jason had hoped that he would leave before Chase could start figuring out ways to keep in contact with him.

“There _are_ ways for us to stay in touch. What, do you just not like talking on the phone or writing?” Chase was already getting slightly defensive and Jason could see the results of this conversation from a mile away.

“Yes— no— yes—” Jason bent his arms, elbows out, and tucked his palms—one on top of the other—behind his head. He sighed. “That’s not really the issue.”

“What is then? I thought we were on the same page—I thought you didn’t want to leave.” Chase sat up with his elbow in the mattress for support.

“I _don’t_ but—“

“But? Why but?”

“Ugh _Chase_ —“ After grumbling and growing tense, Jason blurted out, “I don’t want to stay in touch with you, alright?”

Chase became instantly silent. Jason wanted to break all contact completely after leaving. Chase couldn’t understand _why_. After all, they cared about each other. Or had Chase been wrong in assuming as much? Had the entire summer with him only been a dream? “You don’t—but I thought—“

“You were right Chase.” Jason sat forward, cutting him off from continuing abruptly and rubbing his face hard. “We’re nothing alike. You’re a farmer boy and I’m a city boy. You like quiet and I like noisy. You swim in the creek and I play video games. You read books and I watch movies. This summer with you has been amazing, but we fought through half of it. What makes you think things’ll be any better with distance between us?” Jason turned and glanced over his shoulder at Chase, who looked hurt and too weak to be dramatic about it. “Your life down here is slow and patient. In New York the only thing anyone has the time to do is make a living. I just wanna leave things the way they are, remember you the way you are now.”

For once, Chase was rendered speechless. He knew that what Jason was saying made perfect sense and that it was a better ending to their summer than ending their—whatever it was—over a fight or because life got in the way. That didn’t stop him from being hurt, because sure, Jason might have had a very valid point, but the guy could at least take a risk or show some interest. Then something else occurred to him; did Jason even feel a fraction of the way _he_ felt for him? Chase hadn’t really considered the depth of Jason’s feelings. He’d focused primarily on his own.

“Please don’t get mad at me. I only have a week left here, I’d rather not spend it fighting with you.” Jason sounded exhausted as he spoke and it made Chase feel guilty, though he wasn’t sure why.

“I’m not mad.” Chase’s voice was small. He sat up, still further up the bed and therefore behind Jason. Then Jason turned around and not just his head, his whole body. He sat against the wall where the window in it was a couple of inches from the bed, facing Chase’s bedroom door (which was cracked). “I’m tired of being mad.”

Jason grinned. “That’s not something I ever thought I’d hear you say.” Chase replied with a snort-laugh.

“Unbelievable right?” Chase crossed his legs and set his hands in the center of them, slouching. “I get it though. Makes sense. Knowing me, I’ll get mad at you over something silly and stop talking to you, then every time you think of me you’ll remember _that_ instead of this summer.”

“Yeah...Hey, I wanna take you somewhere before I leave.”

“Like where?”


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have NOT proofread this chapter. I was careful in writing it and fixed any immediate errors within the text box upon posting. Otherwise, if you catch any strange mistakes, let me know.

**THE NIGHT AT THE BAR**

**3** **:** **45** **AM**

She had a flair, a natural wild that could not be tamed, and that dark and daring smile, that glint in her eye, was all so _very_ tempting. That sweet music and his shameless stupor mixed like a cocktail and where Nat touched him felt hot.

As they were talking, dancing, her arms over his shoulders and his hands on her waist, the look in her eyes, which was already soft and endearing, softened further, tainted with something fierce. Then Nat was leaning in and Jason felt her body radiating heat. She paused, asking wordlessly for permission to kiss him and she did so by keep her eyes fixed on his lips and her breath slow and long. He closed the gap, kissed her, answered her, said yes.

Along with the taste of alcohol on her lips was the taste of something sweet, caramel maybe. A warm type of sweet, and smooth and creamy. She dared to kiss harder and tangled her fingers into the hair on the back of his head, which drew him ever closer to her. Natural tastes mingled and Jason pushed up the hem of her shirt, teasing her pale skin with the pads of his fingertips. That was where she stopped and for just a moment Jason worried that she’d gotten the wrong idea; Jason was not trying to be forward. Then, “Wanna get out of here?”

Jason smiled evenly. _You read my mind._ He tilted his smile up to one side. “Take me away, your majesty.” She ushered him out of the bar, barely giving him the time to pay for his drinks first.

  
  


**4** **:** **3** **0 AM**

“You know, I have to be honest, for a big empty place you guys sure have a lot of pretty sights.” They sat among the stars, naked and in each others’ arms. Jason laid on his back with one arm under his head and the other wrapped around Nat, who laid halfway on his chest with her cheek pressed into it. Their eyes joined in the sky, admiring the especially brilliant display of them.

“There’s more than just the stars to look at pretty boy.”

He inhaled deeply, then looked at her, smiling. His neck artery strained and bulged. “You’re right, there’s you.” Nat rolled her eyes.

“Flattery won’t get you anywhere, just so you know. But nice of you to try.” She sat up, flicking her hair over her shoulders, breasts gently bobbing at the movement, then she reached for her shirt in the grass and pulled it on. Jason sat up along with her and started reaching for his clothes a moment later.

“Well you _are_ pretty. Really pretty.” He was putting his arms through the arm-holes in the shirt, pulling it down as he finished replying to her.

“I doubt you would’ve fucked me if you didn’t like my face. I mean, you weren’t _that_ drunk.” Nat chuckled.

“I wasn’t drunk at all.”

“Hey, I would’ve just rolled with it because now I know you dance like that sober. I can only imagine how shit you are at dancing when you’re drunk.”

“Mean, aren’t you?”

“Just honest.” Nat stood up to pull her bottoms on, then buttoned and zipped them. Jason stepped into his trousers sitting, then stood to pull them all the way up. “You should stay, you know.” She was in the middle of putting her hair up when Jason looked her way.

“And be a farmer? Not for me.”

“I get it, but I think you’d like it here if you gave it a fair chance.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Probably not.”

  
  


**6:** **50** **AM**

Jason opened his eyes and blinked them. The room was unfamiliar and there was a warm person next to him. When he looked at her, he realized it was Nat and that she was sleeping. _When did I fall asleep?_ He tenderly moved her so that he could sit up. Next to her bed she had what looked in shape and size like a cellphone. Jason reached for it and felt for buttons, pressed them and went wide eyed at the time that popped up on her lock screen. “It’s almost seven.” And that meant work, and that meant getting back _fast_.

Jason set down Nat’s phone and turned into her on her bed, grabbed her forearm and gently shook her. She mumbled, but didn’t wake, so Jason nudged her again. Same response. “Nat.” He called, shaking her at the same time.

“Mmm, what _what_ —don’t you know what sleep is?” Nat finally stirred awake and she pushed her face into her pillow as if she was shielding her eyes from a light.

“It’s almost seven. I have to be back on the farm soon, like right now.”

“Lemme guess, you need a ride.”

“Please?”

“Ugh _fine_.” She pushed herself up, giving him a grouchy look first and then slid out of bed. “I barely had an hour of sleep so I might swerve off the road and kill you.” She was getting herself dressed while Jason was already dressed and ready to go.

“I’ll make it up to you eventually.”

“Yeah yeah, just get in the car bozo.” She swung open her bedroom door and grabbed a set of keys by the front door, which was in the living room that sat right outside of her bedroom. Jason made sure first that he _didn’t_ look like sex before walking out Nat’s front door after her.

  
  


  
  


**PRESENT DAY**

There was a pond not far from where they were, crawling with wet grass and frogs and pond skaters. Trees were scarce, as the field Nat had introduced him to was barren and wide. But he was here with Chase this time, taking him to the patch of grass he laid in with Nat. It was still dark outside and the waning moon glowed on their skin.

“You wanted to bring me to a field?” Chase, ever the pessimist, walked trembling behind Jason, dirty and weak and dressed in large, heavy clothes which he’d worn for a week. Jason turned around and placed him with a look.

“I wanted to show you the stars.” Jason looked up. Chase did too and above them were trillions of tiny sparkling balls of gas, floating above them in an unreachable part of the sky. The moon made the sky seem navy blue and where clouds, illuminated by the moon’s glow, streaked across the sky ever so faintly, the navy blue turned to a shallow ocean water blue. It was mystical, magical and right out of a fairy tale book.

Accompanying the night were the lightning bugs, beaming gold every couple of seconds in distant swarms. The croaking of the frogs and the loud chirps from the crickets swallowed the night whole. “Pretty.” Chase said. “We should go back. If my mom or dad wakes up and realizes I’m gone they’ll panic.”

Jason turned and looked at him again. He walked to him, stopped in front of him, and placed his hands on Chase’s oily neck, guiding his head with his thumbs under his chin and gripping him with firm hands. “Just be here with me, don’t worry about that.” Jason leaned forward and kissed his lips brief, a punctuation to his sentence, then pulled back and let him go. Chase sighed.

“Why are we all the way out here anyway? Doesn’t Natalie live around here?” Then it dawned on him that Natalie had been the one to show him this place. “Wait, you brought me to a place _Nat_ brought you?”

“I never said Nat brought me here.”

“I put two and two together. You aren’t from around here, so you wouldn’t have just randomly discovered a field near Nat’s place on your own. Besides, you haven’t even had the time to go off wandering by yourself.”

“Perceptive analysis. But why does that upset you?”

“It doesn’t.” Chase was given _the look_ by Jason. “I mean…” He huffed. “Why _wouldn’t_ it? You’re bringing me to the place the girl you slept with showed you when I’m the guy you’ve—“ The phrase was very naughty and foreign on his tongue and as much as he wanted to say it just to be rebellious, he also felt like it was the wrong thing to say.

“The guy I’ve been sleeping with?” Jason seemed to read his mind. Chase sealed his lips and that was enough of an answer. “It’s not like you and I were in a serious relationship.” Chase flinched. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Nat and I are equal.” Chase mumbled his words.

“Equal? What d’you mean?”

“Meaningless fucks.” Chase’s words were sharp and clear and void of any emotions, but his _eyes_ weren’t. They were squinted, pained. Jason sensed another argument coming and sighed.

“I wouldn’t call _you_ a meaningless fuck.” Jason’s eyes were sharp too, but for a different reason. His meaning was absolute and he wanted to convey as much with his tone.

The stretching silence was almost deafening. They shared eye contact and unspoken words mingled between them. Jason waited for the click, for the explosion. After mere seconds, Chase spoke, “Okay.” As if that defensiveness had not even existed, Chase walked past Jason and sat down in the grass. Jason had a hard time trying to read between the lines, as there were no silent messages between the lines to read in the first place.

Jason turned around and followed after Chase, a few feet away from where he’d been standing a moment ago, and sat down beside him in the grass. “You’re mad at me, aren’t you?” Chase looked over and they shared a glance.

“No. I’m tired.” Chase looked forward again, then laid back and looked up at the stars. Jason followed him, still looking at him.

Tired. Jason didn’t know what tired meant. Surely if Chase needed to sleep he would have said so or at least made it obvious. No, tired meant something else. That was the encrypted word and Jason wanted to know what it meant. “Tired as in you need to sleep?”

“Tired of caring. Tired of being angry at you. Tired of fighting.” Chase looked at him and his eyes were half shut. He looked tired in the physical sense then. “I just want to lay here and look at the stars with you.” Ah, there it was. Jason realized what tired meant. Tired meant that Chase had given in, had decided to let go and simply enjoy the moment.

“Okay.” He looked back up into the sky, enchanted by the moon and its countless friends. The glow lulled him into a trance.

“Have you been to the farm yet?”

“The one I inherited? No.”

“Do you know where it is?” Chase rolled to Jason, faced him and held his head up with his palm, elbow in the grass.

“No but I have the address.”

“I want to see it. The farm I mean.” That’s when Jason turned his head and joined Chase’s gaze. “Couldn’t hurt right?”

“I guess.” Jason gave him a very skeptical look. “But why are you bringing up the farm all of a sudden?”

“I just thought it was unfair to sell it when you haven’t even been there. Besides, I kind of want to see what you _could_ have had so I can tell you what a moron you are for not keeping it.” Chase put on a playfully smug expression. Typical Chase. Jason looked at the sky and smiled.

“How about tomorrow?”

“Deal.”


	18. Chapter 18

About five miles past the Reed farm sat a lonely white house up on a slight incline. Its outside was made of white slatwall panels, dirty and gray now from all the years it sat untouched, and the corners were bordered with dark red bricks. There was an empty pasture too that was fenced in all around the house and the grass was growing tall.

It was Blake who took him to the farm. The previous owner had entrusted him with the keys to the house and now that Jason was ready to pay the old place a visit, Blake carried them on a hook on his belt. Chase rode with them too, curious about the farm as he’d never laid eyes on it before.

Jason was given the keys and he walked up a set of granite stone steps to the door. He stuck the key labeled ‘house’ into the lock and turned it to the right, pushing inward once the door was unlocked. Chase followed behind him into the house.

The front door opened into a cherry-wood floored living room, dull though fine. There was a fireplace built into the left-most wall, its frame constructed with wood and stones. The mantel was a beautiful and vivid shade of brown, contrasting well with the light beige walls. All of its tools sat in a metal hanger next to it and where the wall bucked out, on one of its two indented sides, was a dwindling pile of firewood that the previous owner had probably already gathered last winter. What sat was what remained after the passing of the cold.

A greenish, brownish couch, love seat and recliner set were already placed in the center of the living room, on top of a plush white rug, and in the center of that was a rounded table with tree branch arms holding a plate of glass as its surface. And even though the house was well furnished and clearly well taken care of, it also felt empty somehow, like this place had been more for the aesthetic appeal than it had been a home.

Jason walked in and stopped a couple of feet from the door. Chase didn’t stop, he continued around him with his eyes curiously wandered the room. He took special notice of the leaf panel ceiling fan with a marbled looking bulb case in the center. A chain hung down with a small teardrop on the end. “Doesn’t seem entirely southern, does it?” He stopped in front of a large, tall bookshelf and looked at Jason, who was then gazing around the room too.

“Kind of southern, kind of...not.” He didn’t really know how to name the theme of the living room. It had a southern touch for certain, but there was a vague essence of another theme that neither one of them could quite place. “Feels sort of familiar…” Jason started to wander with his feet as well as his eyes. Chase went in his own direction apart from Jason’s, exploring the house on his own.

“Makes sense. Probably reminds you of home a little bit.” Chase called back to him from another room. Jason walked into the dining room, slowly taking in all of its fine features.

There was a long, rectangular table with very rounded corners sitting on top of another rug in the middle of an open room that branched off from both the kitchen and the living room. It was a dark brown wood, still shiny, probably from lack of use, and enough room for six chairs, two on either side and one on each end, and in front of each chair was a thin mat. The corner cut off by the wall separating the living room from the dining room was adorned by a wooden and vintage looking display case. Behind its glass door was trinkets and knickknacks which looked just as old as the shelf itself. _Wh_ _o gives a whole ass farm to some city kid he doesn’t even know?_

“Hey Jason?” Chase appeared out of a room holding an envelope. “This is addressed to you.” Jason turned, walked and approached him, all while giving him cautious eyes. He reached for the envelope and took it, and on the front, in ugly-pretty handwriting, was his first and last name—‘Jason Michaels’.

Jason opened the envelope to reveal the following;

  
  


Dear Jason,

If you’re reading this letter, then I’ve passed away. I’ve been sick for a while now, used to have an awful drinking habit. I guess it finally caught up with me.

I know you’re probably wondering what some stranger’s doing giving his farm to a city boy with no earthly idea how to take care of it. The truth is, I owe you. I owe you so much that I’ll never make up for it. But at least if I give you the farm you can sell it and use the money to do whatever you want to do with it.

I haven’t been in your life and for that I’m gravely sorry. But please understand that I couldn’t give you, as a father, what you deserved. Not at that time. The man your mother married after me was a good man, more capable of being a better father than I ever could have hoped to be. And I’m sorry you’re finding out like this, I didn’t want to fail you anymore than I already had.

If this letter finds you, I want you to know that I love you, son. And I’m proud of you.

Sincerely, Martin, your father.

  
  


“What did it say?” Chase kept his eyes on Jason and was curious as to why he looked as if he’d been hit in the chest with a bat.

They were near enough to the living room couch that Jason could take three steps and lean against it. He took the edge of its back under the heels of his palms, the letter gripped within his fingers and said, “He was my dad.” His voice was quiet, small, confused and his eyebrows were pushed together. He was looking at the floor with hazy and distant eyes.

“Your dad? I thought he died.” Chase flinched at his own words. “I mean—I thought he died in the car accident.“

“Apparently not. According to the letter, he was just my step-dad.” Jason’s chest suddenly blazed with fire and anger. He crumpled the letter into his fist and threw it. Chase instinctively flinched, ducked. “He was alive the _whole fucking time!_ ” Jason shoved his fingertips into his hair through his bangs, cleared his throat and tried to calm himself down.

Chase half-closed his eyes, looking with sadness at Jason, who sniffed. It occurred to him, when Jason pulled his hands down from his hair, that he’d started crying. “Jason…” He reached for him, stepped toward him, stopped in front of him and ghosted his palm at Jason’s waist. This action caught Jason’s attention and he looked up, eyes white and clear and wet, with tears sliding over his cheeks.

“Careful, Blake’s just right outside.” Jason said. Chase paused, closed his hand into a ball and pulled it back. Right, they were essentially directly in front of the door. It wouldn’t take much for Blake to catch them if they touched in any way beyond friendly.

“I thought you didn’t care about that.”

“I don’t, but you do.” Jason’s consideration of such a minor detail, at least in this particular instance, made itself known in Chase’s mind. He valued that in Jason, that he was thoughtful and put Chase first, even over his own desires.

“Right.” Chase swallowed. He wanted to repay that same courtesy somehow but being up close and personal when Blake could walk in at any moment and catch them was a terrifying thought that Chase didn’t feel he could handle should it arise. “Talk to me.” Chase said quietly and their eyes were met and unmoving.

Jason already knew what he meant. “I grew up an orphan. I could’ve lived with my dad instead of two strangers.” He wanted to reach out and embrace Chase, pull him into his arms and bury himself in his warmth. Chase was safe.

“I know. But maybe it was better that things happened the way they did. You got to grow up with two parents instead of one.” For a pessimist, Chase sure was being optimistic. Similarly, for such an optimistic person, Jason was certainly taking on the pessimistic role.

“Yeah.” Jason pulled away from the couch. “You’re right.” He gave Chase a sunlit smile.

  
  


  
  


Three days remained until Jason’s scheduled departure. As the big day drew closer, so did their friendship. Summer had started to cool off throughout that week and the temperature would get as low as seventy degrees.

The summer celebration festival was set up in town and the whole family attended. Yolanda, Jim, Josee, Chase and of course, Jason. There were rides and mini games and a variety of booths, not to mention food carts, a playground and a bar for the older crowd.

“Five VIP bracelets.” Jim stepped up to the ticket booth at the forefront of the event, handing a big bill to the guy in exchange for five neon yellow bracelets. Yolanda took Josee’s and held her still to fasten it to her wrist and Jim handed two of them to Jason and Chase. “Here.” He dug for his wallet in the back of his jeans and handed them both a twenty dollar bill. “Make it last.”

“We will, thanks dad.” Chase wrapped his bracelet around his wrist and strategically used his fingers to pin it down so that he could fasten it with his other hand. Jason waited for him to finish and then held the bracelet and his wrist out for Chase, who fastened Jason’s bracelet on him fluidly.

“Alright, why don’t you boys go have fun? Jim and I’ll take Josee.” Yolanda smiled at them.

“D’you really think that’s a good idea?” Jim spoke up with clear worry.

“Of course I do. They’re both adults. They don’t need us hanging around.” Yolanda winked at him, patted his arm and let it linger there as she walked past him with Josee at her side. Jim sighed and let himself be led with Yolanda, but not before saying—

“You boys be careful. Meet us back at the ticket booth at eleven.”

Both of them nodded, then turned around. They walked side by side in an awkward silence, a heavy presence of unspoken words following them like a shadow. “Wish I could hold your hand.” Jason said in a quiet voice. Chase looked at him with a wry smile.

“You poor thing. It must be hard on you.”

“What?” Jason was grinning too.

“Keeping your hands to yourself. Gotta say, I feel bad for you.” Chase tucked his hands into his jean pockets, as if to physically signify that hand-holding was off limits, and with all the people around them, Jason understood why.

“Shut up.” Jason bumped into him on purpose and Chase, not having expected it, stumbled sideways with a grunt.

“Hey—“ He stepped back into his place and shoved Jason, but barely moved him. Jason laughed, fighting to push against Chase, who pushed against him. Then he stopped when he looked ahead.

“Hey, why don’t we ride that?” He pointed. Chase turned around and followed the direction of his finger, then set his eyes on a rotating wheel with rocking chairs.

“Ferris wheel? That’s old school.”

“So?”

“Sure. Why not?” Chase shrugged and they both started for the queue. When it was their turn, they showed their bracelets to the employee in charge of the ride and were thus allowed to get into the chair together. After securing the bar over their lap, the guy spun them up and let the next pair of guests off so that two more could take their place.

They stopped a few more times, almost at the top when the ride was finally able to rotate its rounds. It brought them down, through the station and then back up. Jason was preoccupied looking down at the shrinking and growing people while Chase, next to him, couldn’t tear his eyes off of him. His heart thumped wildly and his stomach fluttered. He was fascinated with how feeling the way he did for Jason could make it so nerve wracking just to look at him.

“Oh hey, I think I can see your parents from here.” Jason pointed, but when he glanced at Chase, he wasn’t turning his head to seek them out. Instead, Chase rushed forward until they were lip-locked. Jason was initially surprised, but he leaned forward once he’d fully processed what was happening.

Jason took his jaw gently, his arm with the other hand and spilled all of the words onto his lips that he hadn’t the courage to say out loud. Chase shifted his lower half to face Jason, hand inching to his thigh and he abruptly broke the kiss. When he pulled back, his pupils were dilated and his cheeks were flushed.

“People could’ve seen that.” Jason didn’t really care, but he wanted to drill that thought into Chase’s mind. Chase didn’t seem to falter or startle or change his expression at all. “Don’t you care?” He was absolutely flabbergasted when Chase shook his head.

They stared, stared, stared and then Jason started to feel sort of awkward. Chase was staring at him sharply, cataloging his face, his neck, his chest— _oh_ —Jason thought.

The ride stopped and it was their turn to get off so the next people in line could get on. As soon as the bar was released, Chase grabbed him around the wrist and started pulling him from the ride. Jason was nervous and confused and also excited. “Where are you going?” Chase didn’t answer. But he got his answer when Chase led him into a blind spot away from the crowd.

Jason had no time to comment on the location, as Chase grabbed his face on either side with both hands and kissed his mouth. Kissed him hot, kissed him desperate, mean almost. He backed away as they were kissing so that Jason would walk forward and trap him against the wall behind him. Jason had no complaints. It was only when Chase pushed up his shirt and tried to remove it from him that Jason halted. He broke apart from him and put his hands up. “What’re you doing?”

“Well I was _trying_ to take your shirt off.” Breathless and hard against his thigh, Chase let go of the end of Jason’s shirt and leaned his head against the wall.

“I don’t think doing it in public is a smart idea.”

“Why not?” Chase pulled off of the wall again and grabbed Jason, chest to chest and looking up at him with pleading and flirty eyes.

“Someone could see us.”

“Let them see us.”

Jason squinted, furrowed his eyebrows and said, “This isn’t like you. Normally I’d be all for it but we’re in public. There’s a lot of people around. Even _I_ know better.”

“You’re such a prude.”

“What? _I’m_ the prude one? You’re joking.”

Chase twined his arms around Jason’s shoulders and pulled him against him with his weight falling back, using the position to press his hard-on into him. “For once _I’m_ the one who wants _you_ and you’re not even a little bit tempted?”

Jason put his hands on Chase’s hips and ground into him, provoking an airy gasp out of Chase. He squeezed, hummed quietly at him and moved his mouth onto Chase’s ear. “I’m a lot tempted, but not here, not now.”

Chase put his palm in the middle of Jason’s chest and shoved him back. He looked away. “Fine.”

“Are you seriously mad at me?” Jason stood a foot away.

“I’m so _sick_ of the secrecy.” Chase’s voice was choked and frustrated. He bumped the back of his head into the stone of the wall and winced afterward, but didn’t comment on it.

Jason shared his frustration. “The feeling is mutual.” He went closer to Chase and reached for his hair, brushing it aside and taking his cheek. Chase looked forward at him. “Tomorrow night. When everyone’s asleep, we’ll go out to that field you showed me.”

“Planning a sex date isn’t sexy.” He teased, smiling.

“You don’t think so?” Jason smiled too. “We’ll see about that tomorrow.” With a wink, Jason bounced off back into the crowd. Chase groaned because he was still visibly horny and was not so good at hiding it.

“Hey, wait up—“ Chase fixed the front of his jeans to make them less constricting, then walked awkwardly from the alley while pulling the hem of his shirt down to try and hide himself. He caught up with Jason and they decided to stop and get something to eat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The carnival scene might seem pointless, but I wrote it for the purpose of displaying how much Chase has changed because of Jason (i.e. being open and accepting of his lust towards him, even shamelessly) and also to show how careless he's being because of the impending reality of Jason's leaving. 
> 
> Also, big reveal in the first half. I've been SUPER excited to post it! I hope it pleases~
> 
> P.S. Like the previous chapter, this one has not been proofread. I was careful in writing it and sought mistakes in the text box upon posting. Feel free to point out any mistakes I may have missed so I can fix them.


	19. Chapter 19

* * *

Only nine hours remained.

At one in the morning, Jason and Chase both snuck out with blankets and pillows in their arms. They stuffed them into the back of the Toyota and got inside, buckled themselves in and left.

The field Chase adopted as his sacred place was tricky to get to in a vehicle, but when they made it, they pulled the blankets out of the back, along with the pillows, and worked together to set them out in the grass. Then they laid down on their backs, side by side, and looked up at the stars.

The sky was darker than dark, as the waning moon had waned more and its light was less. And in the almost-black blanket of the sky were those tiny, twinkling little dots called stars. There were more of them to see without the moon’s light to hide them and Jason noticed a formation of them overhead to the left. He pointed up at it. “There’s the big dipper. Or maybe it’s the little dipper. I always get them confused.”

“It’s easy to confuse them.” Chase’s voice was solemn, void of enthusiasm. That wasn’t exactly something that was unusual for Chase, but in this situation, Jason’s gut was telling him to look, and he did. He laid eyes on Chase, who stared with still and starlit eyes up at the sky, but there was something about his face, Jason noticed, that didn’t look quite right.

“Hey,” Jason leaned up facing Chase on one of his elbows. “what’s wrong?”

Chase turned his head too and fixed him with a look that defied the lonesome look he wore just a second earlier. “Nothing. Why?”

“You just looked kind of...sad I guess.”

Chase exhaled gently and when he turned his gaze upon the stars again he said, “I am.”

“Because I’m leaving.” Jason felt frustrated. _Clearly_ Chase was upset about that. The frustrating part was that he didn’t know how to make him feel better. That was something he couldn’t influence.

“Yeah. Because you’re leaving.” He repeated the words back, but to himself, saying it thoughtfully and like he needed to remind himself of the fact. “Derek was the only other person I’ve ever felt close to. Then he left,” Chase looked back to Jason. “and now you’re leaving too.”

He couldn’t help but grin. “I wonder what three-months-ago you would do if he heard you say that.” Chase smiled too and rolled his eyes. Just like Jason to spoil the moment with a joke. And although frustrating, it was something Chase loved about him.

He cracked a smile when he glanced at Jason, but then looked back at the sky with a breath. “That was a long time ago.”

Funny how three months was such a short span of time, and yet, for the both of them, felt like an eternity. “Yeah.” Jason said.

“So we haven’t really talked about the farm since you and I paid it a visit the other day.” Again, Chase looked over. “I’m guessing it’s safe to say that it hasn’t changed your mind.” Jason sighed big while gazing at the night sky.

“You want me to stay and I want you to go and neither one of us can do either.”

“And I want to stay in touch and you don’t and that’s that.” Chase replied with the same amount of lax exasperation in his voice, almost as if this calamity of sorts was so familiar to them that they’d had no other choice than to embrace it.

“You seem to think that what happens now is all there is to it.” Jason looked over and this time sat up, leaning back on his palms. “One day you might even get to see Derek again. Maybe we’ll see each other again too.”

 _When we’re old and already married to other people._ Chase thought. He wasn’t so fond of thinking that far ahead, of considering that there could ever be anyone to ever compare with Jason. His heart was set and it had Jason’s name written all over it and regardless of what Jason had to say about it, that _was_ that. But little did he know that Jason’s feelings were of a similar strength, even though Jason was much better at packing it down with self taught lies.

“I just—“ He laid back down. “want to do my own thing, without any distractions or obstacles.”

The air thickened and Chase sat straight up after hearing those words come out of his mouth. He looked at Jason with parted lips and knitted eyebrows. “Oh, is _that_ how you feel about me? Which one am I, a distraction or an obstacle?”

“Wait what?”

“You said you wanted to do your own thing without any distractions or obstacles, and since I want you to stay here when you don’t want to stay here, that includes me.”

“Wh—where did you get _that_ from? That’s not true.”

“Isn’t it? Is there something about me that isn’t good enough for you, what—“

“Chase, you misunderstood what I meant—“

“Nooo I think I understood you _perfectly_. Nice summer vacation huh, getting a free house and a free room and a free fuck and you’d rather go back to your spectacular life in New York because you don’t want any _distractions_ or _obstacles_ in your way so you can go and do whatever it is you city breeds do.”

Jason chuckled. “City breed?“

“And there you go making light of the situation again, like you do, because you can’t take anything seriously.”

“Oh that’s bullshit.”

“Name one thing you took seriously.”

“I dunno, _everything?_ ” How did these two seem to constantly find themselves in an argument, jumping from one mood to the next with no in between. Jason was usually a very calm, go-with-the-flow kind of person, but that grating side of Chase was good at poking the beast.

“How seriously? Because at least you weren’t serious enough about me.”

“Are you kidding me right now?”

Chase picked up his pillow and threw it at Jason, not that it did much, and stood up in a stomp and then continued stomping toward the car.

“God fucking—“ Jason whirled to his feet, his chest fluttering and warm his heart was beating so violently and he yelled at Chase’s back from where he stood. “ _This_ is why I don’t want us to stay in touch!” Chase stopped two steps away from the car. “Because every fucking thing I say pisses you off and instead of trying to understand what I mean, you yell at me and then run off, expecting _me_ to come after you and apologize. You’re—“ He violently mussed up his hair. “the most _infuriating_ person I’ve ever met!”

Chase felt those words stab at his heart. Not only was Jason right—and Chase knew he was right—he’d just said that Chase was the most infuriating person he’d ever met, and somehow that touched on a nerve.

—“ _You know, sometimes you can be so annoying.” — Derek._

One lover had said it before, and another was saying it now. Was he really such a burden? Was he really so _aggravating_ and annoying and in the way? Then... _wasn’t_ he a distraction? _Wasn’t_ he an obstacle?

Chase collapsed into the grass on his knees. All the years of hurt, the hiding, the pain and confusion, all barricaded by venomous words and mean looks and needing to control _everything_ , burst out of him. The dam shattered all at once. The reason that those words hurt him so much was because he felt, deep inside, as if they were true. To be looked at in the worst way possible by the person you love more than yourself was a cruel death.

Jason felt immediate guilt, not just for losing control of his mouth, but for being responsible for the agonizing sounds of hurt coming from Chase, who was bent over on his knees in the grass hugging himself and crying. _Did what I said really hurt his feelings that much?_

 **Burden** **—** **gay** **—** **sinner** **—** **broken** **—** **alone** **—** **bitter** **—** **annoying** **—** **worthless** **—** **unlovable** **—** **trappe** **d** **—**

His mind swarmed with all these thoughts, once fragmented and well hidden behind a face Chase had learned at a young age to wear. The last of his walls had finally crumbled and the person inside of Chase was now the person wailing in the grass.

Was Chase ever meant to be anything more than a vessel programmed with someone else’s will?

Jason approached him from behind and reached out reluctantly with a hand, placing it on his shoulder. Chase flinched. “Hey, Chase. Look at me.” A far cry from his outburst, Jason’s voice was soothing and sweet, like that of a mother’s voice. But Chase resisted and pulled away when Jason tried to pull him around. So Jason rounded him and squatted in front of him. Chase’s head was bowed, hair in his face and Jason grabbed his wrists to pry his hands away from his face. “Look at me.”

“No—I don’t want—want you to see me like this.” Chase trembled. He was humiliated. No one was ever meant to see the vulnerable and frightened person he truly was.

“Chase, _look_ at me.”

He did, and there it was. The ugly, the weak, the strong, the darkness, every part of him and not just the good ones, for Jason to see and judge. “You’re right.” Chase said in a quaking, stuffy voice. _You’re right about me._ Right about what? This was Jason’s biggest wonder.

“I’m sorry.” Jason pulled Chase’s wrists and let go of them to embrace him completely. Chase dug his fingers into the back of Jason’s shirt. “You’re not a distraction or an obstacle or whatever else you’re thinking.” He breathed, sighed heavily, halfway with relief and halfway with exasperation. _You’re my strength._ He thought.

“You really don’t think so?” Chase pulled himself back and looked Jason in the eyes. Jason held his gaze intimately.

“No. I’d never think that way about you, even if you _are_ a pain in the ass.” He said it with a smile so that Chase would know the warmth that he felt for him, even for someone who could be so irritating. Chase smiled and chuckled too, quaking in doing so.

Jason placed his palm along Chase’s wet and warm cheek and kissed the tear rolling down it. His bangs tickled Chase’s eyelashes and he closed his eyes in response, then he pulled himself back and took Jason’s face with both of his hands, and he kissed him.

There, in that patch of grass sitting next to the Toyota, they inscribed their hearts, both full with love, into each other’s skin. Jason on Chase’s and Chase on Jason’s and they stayed for as long as they could before packing everything into the back of the car and leaving.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo this chapter feels a little melodramatic to me but this argument was necessary. I see it as a symbol of the last of Chase's fronts being stripped away, so you can see what's in his heart. The wailing on the grass is symbolic for who Chase THINKS he is; the ugly and undesirable, and Jason loving him regardless. 
> 
> Anyway, another chapter not proofread. I tend to hover over my work so that few mistakes, if any, make it to the final version. As always, please point out any mistakes I may have missed.


	20. Chapter 20

“It’s been a pleasure staying with you guys.” Jason was yanked into a hug from Yolanda who’d already started to cry.

“It’s been a pleasure having you.” When she pulled away she cupped Jason’s face and said, “You’re always welcome here, don’t feel like a stranger.” Then she kissed him on the forehead and pulled her arms away with a sniff. Jim tightened his lips and gave Jason the awkward ‘acknowledging single nod’. He held his hand out and Jason took it.

“Take care son.” He nodded again in that same abrupt manner.

“You guys too.”

“I don’t waaaant you to goooo.” Josee wailed on his leg, having attached herself at some point without anyone’s knowledge. Jason chuckled at her and reached down to pick her up, hugging her to his side. She molded herself to him, head in his chest. “Do you really have t’go Jason?” She popped her head up to look at him, her face awkwardly close to his. Jason had to back away and focus his eyes to see her properly.

“Yeah, I really have to go. I have a home in New York. My family’s there.”

“Aren’t we family too?”

Jason felt guilty. What a sweet child. Not that he’d known her very well or gotten to spend much time with her, but she was familiar to him now, like family even, and saying goodbye to her was just as painful as saying goodbye to anyone else. He gave Josee a pained look. “Of course you guys are.” He pinched her nose and smiled at her. “Sometimes families live all over the place, but just because they aren’t together doesn’t mean they aren’t family.”

“Then you will come and visit us won’t you?”

That was a tricky question to answer because Jason knew that he likely would not be back, but he also didn’t want to hurt Josee’s feelings. He set her down, staying bent over to look her in the eyes. “I’ll tell you what, if I get a day off, I promise to come down here to see you, okay?”

“Okay!” Josee jogged away giggling, all remnants of her sadness completely gone.

Chase was the last person to say goodbye to. Jason walked up to him and stood in front him. “Don’t tell me you’re actually gonna _miss_ me, Chase Reed, not _you_.” He teased and Chase scoffed playfully at him, shoving him too.

“Shut up you asshole.” He tried to fight it lest he have an embarrassing look on his face but he was unable to shake away the watering eyes. Jason grabbed him with a laugh and gave him a hug and for just that moment, neither of them cared that they were hugging closer than they needed to or that Jim and Yolanda were standing a few feet away. Not to mention Blake, who was waiting patiently for Jason to finish saying his goodbyes so that he could take him to the airport.

“Take care of yourself, Chase.” Jason said as he pulled out of the hug. He smiled and then went and got in Blake’s truck.

“You too.” Chase mumbled quietly to him in reply, then went to have Yolanda wrap her arm around his shoulder.

“Bye Jason!” They all said in unison. Josee was the last to say it and Jason smiled, then waved from the rolled down window of the truck. Blake shut his door and buckled the seat belt across his lap. He revved up the engine and they were off.

It felt unreal to them both. The distance between them stretched and grew and the truck got smaller and smaller and Chase became further and further away and before they knew it, they could no longer see each other.

Jim, Yolanda and Josee went inside and Chase was left in the driveway, watching the road, waiting for that truck to reappear, hoping, praying it would. It never did.

Finally Chase went inside, went straight to his room and sat down on his bed. There was a certain emptiness about the house now that Jason wasn’t in it, a hollow quiet that Jason filled completely just with his presence. It was also colder, the way it was before and Chase noted that he didn’t like it.

Jason walked inside the airport, lugging his suitcase behind him. His flight was set for eleven that morning, only twenty minutes until the plane would begin boarding, and not enough time for Chase to magically appear in front of him and tell him to stay. All Chase had to do was come after him, tell him to stay, and Jason would. He waited and waited and looked around, hoping, praying that Chase would come running up to him. He never did.

  
  


  
  


All day Chase had laid in bed, not having moved from his spot. Not to eat, not to use the bathroom, not to do his chores. Yolanda came into his bedroom a quarter till six when his day would normally end. She set her hip against the door frame and crossed her arms. She stood there quietly, just a presence. Chase didn’t look at her, but said in a blank voice, “I’m in love with Jason.”

“I know.” Yolanda did not express any surprise.

Chase looked at her then, furrowing his eyebrows down and looking at her with confusion and incredulity in his features and tone. “...You _knew?_ ”

“I’m your mother. It’s my job to know things about my kids.” She smiled at him, pushed off of the door frame and waved her hand at his feet when she walked over. Chase pulled them in and sat up so she could sit down next to him. “Besides, the way you two looked at each other was the same way your father and I looked at each other when we were young and in love.”

The only thing that Chase heard of that sentence was “you two”, because that would imply that Jason shared his feelings. His chest ached more painfully in thinking that Jason might have reciprocated than it did thinking Jason was simply the one that got away. He wanted to speak but all of his words were tangled together.

“You know, I never told you this, but your father and I had odds against us, just like you and Jason. My mother hated him and his father hated me, said we were all wrong for each other. I wasn’t born into this life, he was, and my mother hated him for it. And his father hated me for not knowing anything about living on a farm and they tried everything to keep us apart.”

“How did you guys get married if you weren’t allowed to be together?”

Yolanda leaned in close and squinted, smiling and she said, “We ran away. I loved him and he loved me and we weren’t going to let our parents come between us.”

“I can’t just run away and leave you guys. Not after finding out about dad, you guys need me.”

She brought her hand forward and brushed Chase’s hair aside, then held onto his cheek. “I seem to recall a time when it was just your father and I, before you or Josee were born. We’ll be _fine_ Chase. You have dreams. You shouldn’t ignore them.” Chase rolled his face out of her hand and fixed her with a solemn look on his face. Yolanda smiled with a trace of that same melancholy in her own features.

“If Jason wanted me around—“ Chase stammered, looking for any excuse to stay. This was, after all, his home. “If he wanted me around then why did he say that he never wanted to see me again?”

Yolanda gave him a very dramatic, very sardonic look. “If you really believe that then you’re just as blind as he is.”

“What? How am _I_ the blind one? I kept trying to get him to stay and he kept shooting me down, insisting it was better this way. Fucking asshole.” He mumbled at the end and darted his eyes away.

“Well maybe _he_ can’t stay, but you could _go_.”

 _But you guys need me._ He would have spoken out loud if it weren’t for the fact that Yolanda had already pointed out otherwise. Instead Chase tightened his lips and looked her dead in the eyes. “How? And _where?_ I don’t know where he lives and he didn’t give me any way to get in touch with him.”

“You know that the person who left his farm to Jason in his will is his father right?” A nod. “He was good friends with Blake. If anyone knows where to find Jason, that’d be him.”

“What about money?”

Yolanda smiled. “I maaay have that covered.” She got up. “Be right back.” Chase watched with curious and anxious eyes as Yolanda left his room and walked down the hall. She went into the living room and disappeared for a few minutes, but then came back around the corner holding a leather coin purse the size of an envelope.

“What’s that?”

“ _This_ is money your father and I were saving for you to go to college one day. It was before we found out he was sick. After that, we just couldn’t afford to add to it anymore.” Yolanda handed the coin purse over to him and he took it. “That’s about nine thousand dollars.”

Chase nearly choked on his own saliva. “Nine _thousand?_ ” Yolanda chuckled at his surprise and gave him a nod.

“It was over fifteen thousand but we had to break into a few times to pay for your father’s medical expenses.”

“Then doesn’t he need this more than me?” Chase handed the money back with a rapid swing of his arm, as if to say ‘get it away from me before I change my mind’. Yolanda simply placed her hands over his without taking it and smiled.

“Take it. It’s supposed to be yours.”

Chase’s eyes watered. How could he ever show his gratitude to this woman for the things she’d done for him? And on top of that, it occurred to him that Jim would have had to be in on it, which meant that Jim _wanted_ him to go to college. How much guilt had that man faced in having to squash his son’s ambitions?

He reached in and grabbed her, held her and hugged her tight. She chuckled, wrapping her arms around him. “I’ll help you pack.” They both clambered out of bed in a hurry—Yolanda after the biggest suit case she could find—and Chase for the clothes and belongings that he would want to bring along.

Underwear, socks, shirts, pants— _what else, what else_ —laptop, glasses case, shoes— _what am I missing_ —“There it is.” He said, taking Wuthering Heights into his hand. He put it on the bed with everything else and that was right as Yolanda walked into the room hoisting up a giant and heavy looking, cranberry colored suitcase. “Will this one be big enough?”

“Yeah, I think I can make that work.” Chase took it and helped her set it at the pillow end of the bed so he could start piling his clothes inside.

A cry in the floorboards drew their attention. The frightening Jim appeared, stopping in the doorway. “Goin’ somewhere?” Both Chase and Yolanda looked at each other, then uttered an ‘uhh’. Yolanda didn’t speak though, this was Chase’s right and whether or not he chose to say anything was entirely up to him.

For a moment, all Chase could do was stare at his father like a deer caught in a pair of headlights. He couldn’t really lie considering the suitcase and the pile of clothes on his bed. One way or another, Jim would know _where_ he was going, but did he really need to know _why_ he was going?

“Dad I’m—“ He shivered. Jim was his father, a man who commanded a great deal of respect, who supported and carried the weight of his entire family and who did it with strength and courage, even in the face of his own end. How could he recover if that man were to disown him?

Jim stood patiently awaiting his continuation at the door. Chase stuttered, trembled, went hot then cold then hot again, and then finally he said, “I love Jason. I’m going to New York to be with him.”

The moments preceding his father’s response were like a minute long each. He saw in slow motion his father walking toward him, could hear every sound and feel every minute shift in the atmosphere around him, all as if they weren’t signals coming from his own body. He felt afraid, not of being hurt, but of not being accepted.

Then Jim pulled him into a suffocating hug. Although he was confused by this, Chase put his arms around Jim’s back and looked at Yolanda in front of the couch bed. She shrugged and gave him the ‘don’t ask me, I don’t know’ look.

“Um, dad?” Jim stepped back, looking down at his son.

“You musta been afraid t’say that. I’m proud of you for tellin’ me.”

Chase was completely and entirely mind-blown by his father’s response. “So...you’re not angry?”

“I’m not angry.” Jim confirmed. “And I never shoulda tried t’keep you here. You belong out in the world, puttin’ good use t’that brain o’ yours.” He looked over at Yolanda, who’s eyes had begun to water. “You got your ma’s smarts. That big ole brain’s why I fell for her.” Then he looked back at Chase.

Jim, stern and harsh and strict, accepting of his son’s sexual identity and supportive of his unwavering desire to fly the coop and explore the world. That Christian man who’s love for his son was more powerful than a stigma, who gave his blessing in the breadth of a moment and without hesitation or prejudice. That man was Chase’s father, James Reed. He could never have been more proud to be Jim’s son.

Chase glued himself to Jim. “I love you.” He said and then jerked back when he realized— “I’m sorry about what I said. It was heartless and selfish. I wish I’d never said it.”

Jim pulled him back in to hug him. “I know kiddo, I know.” After a good squeeze and a pat on the back, Jim parted from him and stepped back. “You’re gonna need somebody t’take you to the airport. I’ll go start the truck.”

“And I’ll go call Blake about that address.” Yolanda said, and they both walked out of the room. Jim smacked her rear end and she yelped. Chase stood behind, watching and shaking his head. Crazy people. He loved them to death.

  
  


  
  


After purchasing the eight o’clock flight, all that needed to be done was to wait. Jim, Yolanda and Josee all waited with Chase in the gatehouse, playing card games with a deck of ordinary playing cards. Old maid was Josee’s favorite and she was good at it too, though Chase had a sneaking suspicion that she was hiding the joker—or the maid—under the table. Smart for a four year old and would probably inherit Yolanda’s lofty brain just as Chase had.

When his flight was called, Chase said his goodbyes and boarded his plane. They stayed behind, standing outside together to watch his plane take off and Chase, although he couldn’t see them, knew they were watching— _I love you guys so much._

  
  


  
  


“Jason, Daisy needs to be let outside!” That was Agatha’s voice, calling from the bedroom. Jason sighed, reluctantly peeling himself from his twin sized mattress, which sat on the floor without a frame. He walked out of his room and went to let Daisy—their curly haired beagle—outside.

“Daisy, here girl. Wanna go outside?” The little clicks of Daisy’s nails on the wooden floor scuttled from some random part of the apartment as she came running to him. He pulled her leash from the coat hanger and bent down to hook it to her collar, all while she wagged her tail so fiercely that her whole back end waggled with it.

When he got the leash hooked to her collar, he unlocked and opened their dingy old front door. Daisy started pulling him the second she could fit out the door and Jason was nearly jerked into it. He wrapped his hand around the doorknob on his way out so it would come shut once he was out the door. Then once he was, Daisy sniffed and trotted through the two and a half yards of grass they had out in front of their complex.

New York was home to Jason. He’d grown up there, was used to it, to its sights and smells and sounds, to falling asleep to noise, to walking through a concrete jungle and taking in a different smell every so many steps. It was crowded and busy and lively, always something to do. There was no bedtime or routine or set time to eat dinner and no one was forced to stare at each other across a table every evening while they ate. People were rude and self-absorbed and the common rule was ‘every man for himself’ out in the big apple. It was familiar. It was as predictable as unpredictable could be and inspiring, in a way.

Until Jason had gone and stayed with the Reed family. He’d had to grow used to going to sleep without any sound, had to get used to the same sights and sounds and smells every day and the heat, the unbearable heat compared to the brittle cold of the city were all unpleasant changes that Jason had grown strangely attached to. Seeing grass and trees for miles in and of itself was a pleasant change, then there was the sparkling night sky that Jason had only ever seen in science books, the creek where the water felt and tasted and smelled like earth instead of chlorine and then...there was the tedious, slow growth of vegetation and the reward of having accomplished something so big and impossible. Jason realized he was homesick.

He missed the farm, missed the stars, missed the quiet and the friendly faces. He missed the creek and the woods and the tree house, missed hearing the frogs and crickets and fireflies and above all else, he missed Chase.

Jason knew that those feelings would subside as he reacquainted himself with his old life, but the initial separation was disconcerting.

Daisy started barking viciously, wagging her tail and tugging the leash toward the gate. Jason looked up, expecting there to be another dog owner walking their dog, but instead he froze and dropped his jaw. The leash fell out of his hand too and Daisy jumped up on the lattice fence to bark at Chase as he started walking closer. _Yep,_ _I’ve_ _lost_ _my mind._

Chase didn’t appear to have noticed him. He was looking at a piece of wrinkled paper in his hand and occasionally glancing around. Behind him was a reddish suitcase being rolled along. “Chase?” Chase stopped as soon as he heard his name and he looked for the source of the voice, finding and meeting Jason’s gaze.

He gasped. “Jason!” A brilliant smile, unlike any smile Jason had ever seen him make, lit up on his face. He rushed for the gate and Jason, out of intrigue and uncertainty alike, unlocked it to let Chase in. The moment he did, Chase grabbed him in for a hug.

“What—how are you here?” Not that he wasn’t happy to see Chase, because he was, but the last he’d heard, Chase was unable to leave the farm and he assumed a lack of money played an important role in that issue.

“College money. Or what’s left of it anyway.”

“College, but—I thought your dad didn’t want you going to college.”

“I was wrong. He always wanted me to go to college, but then he got sick and everything got screwed up.”

Jason half-smiled. He was happy, indescribably happy, but, “Why did you come all the way here?”

“Because I love you.” For once, Chase was never more sure of anything else. He spoke those words with a frightful confidence and certainty. He didn’t flinch, didn’t blink, didn’t stutter, didn’t blush and didn’t look away.

In that moment, it felt to Jason—and to Chase—like the world had finally figured itself out. He smiled. He smiled because nothing else quite fit, and then he set his hands in Chase’s hair and said, as if all the world stood still for just a moment, “I love you too.” Then he closed the distance between them and kissed Chase, bleeding out into his mouth with an unmatched feeling of warmth and love, and thought, _I’m home. As long as I’m wherever you are._

**Author's Note:**

> After 6 years, I'm proud to say that this story—Jason and Chase's story—is officially complete. However, their story is far from over. I would really like to write a sequel to this one day, but I would like to focus on some of my other books first. Thank you so much for reading <3


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